Ending months of speculation, Google on Monday said it would end its censorship of its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn. Users trying to access that site are being redirected to Google.com.hk, where the company said it would offer uncensored search results in simplified Chinese.
In an apparently coordinated assault, Chinese media outlets have exacerbated an already tense situation in which Google and the Chinese government are locked in a stare-down over Web censorship. Both sides appear entrenched, and Google may be ready to make good on its threat to leave.
A representative of the Chinese government said Saturday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being "disrespectful" when she urged U.S. companies to stand up to Internet censorship in authoritarian countries like China.
A day after Google said it might quit China after a cyber attack hacked the Gmail accounts of human rights activists there, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked China's leaders for an explanation. Free speech advocates, meanwhile, praised the search giant's decision to remove censorship filters in the country.
Google may pull out of the Middle Kingdom after discovering that hackers tricked human rights activists into opening their email accounts to outsiders. As a first step, the search giant says it will stop censoring its search results in the country -- a major turnabout for Google.
Google may pull out of the Middle Kingdom after discovering that hackers tricked human rights activists into opening their email accounts to outsiders. As a first step, the search giant says it will stop censoring its search results in the country -- a major turnabout for Google.
