China’s very restrictive information control and filtering is definitely not new to the world. For years, they’ve been censoring incoming information from every single form of media. Books are screened before they’re allowed to be sold in the country, internet content is filtered, and even TV content is monitored.
Since Google set up operations in China (along with setting up their Google.cn domain) in 2006, they’ve been bending their own rules to keep their site up and legally running under China’s strict rule. As of today, however, it seems they’ve simply had enough.
Until now, Google has been censoring search results to fit within the criteria of the Chinese government. However, in order to do this, they’ve actually been bending some of their own principles in the process. They no longer intend to do this however, and they aren’t wasting any time.
Just this afternoon, they announced on their blog that they’re currently in the process of collaborating with the Chinese government and trying to strike a deal. If China can’t bend their rules for Google, then Google will simply shut down their operations (datacenters, research facilities, and the Google.cn website) that they currently operate in China.
Despite the enormous amounts of traffic Google garners from North America, China makes up a fairly large portion of their user base. The fact that, within a couple of weeks, they’re willing to chop that huge userbase completely out of their hands, means that they’re definitely not taking this lightly. They’re serious, and if China’s government has any clue what they’re doing, it would be smart for them to do what they should have done years ago: let people use the internet for what it was meant to be used!
Negotiations could take a couple of weeks, so until then, we most likely won’t know much more than we do now. Hopefully China will come to its senses and rectify the situation.
