Google’s China Move
By Harry McCracken | Monday, March 22, 2010 at 2:07 pm
A little over two months ago, Google declared that it had been the victim of a massive hacker attack originating within China, and had decided as a result that it would no longer participate in government-imposed self-censorship within mainland China. It said it would discuss its next steps with the Chinese government, and while the company hasn’t disclosed the nature of those discussions, we now know their upshot: Google has shut down its censored Chinese version and is now giving mainlanders an uncensored search engine in Simplified Chinese, delivered from its servers in Hong Kong.
The Chinese government, of course, may decide to block this new version of Google, as it does many other uncensored sources of information. If it does, we’ll know about it: Google has a new page up that shows the status of its various services on the mainland.
At the moment, Web search, image search, news, ads, and Gmail are up; YouTube, Sites, and Blogger are down; and Docs, Picasa, and Groups are partially blocked:
Whatever happens next, I’m glad that Google made good on its January promise. Tech companies like to explain their willingness to censor in China by saying that they follow the laws of the countries they do business in. Google says that its new uncensored engine is legal in China–wonder if Microsoft, Yahoo, or any other American company that currently offers censored services there will launch something similar?
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Wayne's Workshop » Daily Run Down: 03-22-2010 Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:55 pm[…] has stepped up their fight against China by redirecting all Google.cn searches to […]
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New car alarms and locking systems, Braking locks the car doors,why? Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:46 pm[…] Google's China Move […]
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China Strikes Back Says:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:41 pm[…] Google’s uncensored search engine and otherwise reacting negatively to Google’s termination of its filtered version yesterday. Good coverage by James Fallows here and here. tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; Share/E-Mail […]
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不谈google，只是个new approach update||笛歌博客 Says:
March 26th, 2010 at 7:57 pm[…] Google’s China Move […]
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Google Legal Risks | BianYang's Blog Says:
August 22nd, 2010 at 1:01 am[…] Harry McCracken. 2010. Google’s China Move. […]
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China Denies Google Claims of Beijing Gmail Frame-Up | HaLaPic Says:
March 23rd, 2011 at 6:41 am[…] certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented. China already has a troubled history with Google, not to mention the online community at large. In 2005, the Guardian reported China’s […]
March 22nd, 2010 at 4:29 pm
http://a101010.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-feeling-uncnsored.html
March 23rd, 2010 at 7:01 am
I’m annoyed with Google, as a shareholder, for jumping into areas where they can’t possibly excel (Android), but, having followed this story, they made the only possible ethical choice.
China was trying to hack GOOG’s servers to get info on human rights activists. Now, nobody in China has the technical prowess to actually take on Google, but if they got lucky, human right activists would end up be tossed in jail or summarily executed. I don’t care if Yahoo, MSFT, Baidu and other companies are willing to stick to a “business is business” line; playing by China’s rules is pretty nearly the moral equivalent of selling tainted Chinese baby food. It is wrong.
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:45 pm
i strongly disagreed with Google Inc.’s ridiculous move of exitting from Chinese market. Firstly, Why does Google Inc. want to exit China? Why Google Inc. make a commision before enterring China, just a gimmick? Now that Google have made an agreement, why such move is given a hat of justice under the human right of acess to the information. How can they have such a commitment. For example, can our Chinese firms sell porn products to your countries? is it banned under the rule agreed before? Secondly, now Google Inc. is trying to launch into mobile handset market. is such move to improve thier celerity? If so, it is “brilliant move” to improve image in China. I think Google Inc is digging tomb for themselves. Now you can look at the volume of sale of Nexus one, it is dramatically defeated by the score of I PHONE. Why you can not pay more attention on that instead of taking unnecessary hand on China’s google. We can parrell the move of restrition in internet of China as the preotectionism of global trade. Why people are willing to issue protectionism, just for protect something. Why you do not want to breach such rule rather than Chinese internet restrition. Why you can not find it is stupid move. Thirdly, even through its move will make some effect on the Chinese market due to a certain percent of customer base in China. However, does Google Inc dominate China? Does Internet search tool elastic? Why do customers choose baidu instead. Why do Google Inc think their product is as inelastic as iPhone… In conclusion, although its move may make a bit effect on Chinese internet market, it will end up with the failure and huge loss in advertisement and Nexus one.
March 24th, 2010 at 3:44 am
strongly disagreed with Google Inc.’s ridiculous move of exitting from Chinese market. Firstly, Why does Google Inc. want to exit China? Why Google Inc. make a commision before enterring China, just a gimmick? Now that Google have made an agreement, why such move is given a hat of justice under the human right of acess to the information. How can they have such a commitment. For example, can our Chinese firms sell porn products to your countries? is it banned under the rule agreed before? Secondly, now Google Inc. is trying to launch into mobile handset market. is such move to improve thier celerity? If so, it is “brilliant move” to improve image in China. I think Google Inc is digging tomb for themselves. Now you can look at the volume of sale of Nexus one, it is dramatically defeated by the score of I PHONE. Why you can not pay more attention on that instead of taking unnecessary hand on China’s google. We can parrell the move of restrition in internet of China as the preotectionism of global trade. Why people are willing to issue protectionism, just for protect something. Why you do not want to breach such rule rather than Chinese internet restrition. Why you can not find it is stupid move. Thirdly, even through its move will make some effect on the Chinese market due to a certain percent of customer base in China. However, does Google Inc dominate China? Does Internet search tool elastic? Why do customers choose baidu instead. Why do Google Inc think their product is as inelastic as iPhone… In conclusion, although its move may make a bit effect on Chinese internet market, it will end up with the failure and huge loss in advertisement and Nexus
March 24th, 2010 at 9:27 am
I think Victor and Jeewan are working for their colonialist masters. Astoturfing comes to Technologizer
March 29th, 2010 at 9:36 am
I think its a shrewd move that lets everyone involved save face but only marginally improves the situation. The PRC Gov’t is no less hypocritical than before – enforcing their laws on the mainland and letting Hong Kong be the exception so that they have somewhere they can make money – and gets to do the filtering itself. Google gets to get out of the filtering business and leave that to the Gov’t and still remain in the Chinese market. By putting up their monitoring site, they make transparent exactly what the Gov’t is blocking and when (the marginal improvement). Internet searchers inside China don’t seem to get any greater or lesser access to information than before, however. They just have a different face to point their finger at when results are unavailable.
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. 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. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. 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. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.
First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.
Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.
We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this Report to Congress (PDF) by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (see p. 163-), as well as a related analysis (PDF) prepared for the Commission, Nart Villeneuve’s blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.
We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
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.
The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.
http://www.imtechnologies.net
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. 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. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.
First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.
Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.
We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this Report to Congress (PDF) by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (see p. 163-), as well as a related analysis (PDF) prepared for the Commission, Nart Villeneuve’s blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.
We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
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.
The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.
First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.
Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.
We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this Report to Congress (PDF) by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (see p. 163-), as well as a related analysis (PDF) prepared for the Commission, Nart Villeneuve’s blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.
We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
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.
The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.
September 29th, 2010 at 4:18 am
Google should be allowed in China.