Google issues ultimatum to Chinese government

Wednesday 13 January 2010 | By Heidi Scott, Gosh! Media Copywriter

A number of recent attacks on Google and its users – specifically, those in China and western nations who support human rights activists – combined with the Chinese government's new resolve to limit information on the Internet seems to have convinced Google to pull out of China.

Google moved into China back in 2006, when it decided that offering its Internet search service from outside the country – which made it subject to 'The Great Firewall of China' – was no longer tenable. By moving its operations to within China, Google was legally obliged to police itself, censoring results to the country's 350 million Internet users to block sensitive topics such as Tibet and the Tiananmen Square massacre.

It would be hard to deny a financial motive behind the decision to move in. China has the highest number of Internet users in the world – plus, with only 25 per cent of the country currently on line – the potential for even more staggering growth.

Human rights groups condemned Google's decision to bow to censorship, with many arguing that it made a nonsense of Google's 'don't be evil' mantra, promoted in the company's initial public offering in 2004. Even Google didn't seem totally comfortable with the policy, with co-founder Sergey Brin telling The Guardian in 2007 that the company's actions had resulted in a "net negative".

Beijing certainly exerts its power in Chinese cyberspace. Although the Chinese government failed in its attempt last year to force computer manufacturers to install a censorship programme called 'Green Dam' on new PCs, a number of websites – including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (owned by Google) – are blocked.

A spate of attacks in December seems to have proved the last straw for Google. In a post yesterday on the Official Google Blog, David Drummond (Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer), describes the recent attacks:

"In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google."

Drummond goes on to explain that the company's investigations have revealed that at least twenty other large companies – in various business sectors including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemicals – have been targeted. He states that Google has evidence to suggest that the attackers were attempting to access the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists, although the attacks are thought to have been unsuccessful.

Google also appears to accuse Chinese hackers of trying to gain access to its email service in order to spy on Chinese human rights activists, saying that dozens of activists based in the US, China and Europe had had their accounts "routinely accessed by third parties".

The blog post continues: "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered – combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web – have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

After the announcement, Google's China website reportedly began to offer articles and images of the Tiananmen incident and other highly sensitive events that Beijing has tried to suppress.

It was also revealed yesterday that executives from Google, Microsoft and Cisco Systems – which provides much of China's Internet infrastructure – had met with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to discuss how to stop countries from censoring information. Mrs Clinton appeared to back the campaign against China's lack of free speech and human rights groups have welcomed both her stance and Google's announcement.

With its ultimatum to Beijing unlikely to be met, it seems inevitable that Google will pull out of China. The move will not, however, put much of a dent in the Internet giant's profits. According to ComScore, Google had only 14.1 per cent of the Chinese search market in November last year, with the home-grown search company, Baidu, commanding a massive 62.2 per cent. Google itself has, in the past, described its operations in China as "immaterial" to its revenues, which were almost US$22 billion (£13.6 billion) in 2008.

The question now being asked in cyber circles is: should executives from Microsoft and Yahoo in China be packing their bags too?

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