Google goes uncensored for China

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 23 March 2010 10:48

IT Policy - Regulation

Google has followed through on its threat to stop censoring search results for users in China.

Following an attack on Google and other US companies that originated from China, the search giant threatened to withdraw its cooperation with the Chinese Government's requirement for search results to be censored.

Google has now followed through by redirecting google.cn to google.com.hk, the company's uncensored Hong Kong site.

The idea is that visitors from the Chinese mainland will receive uncensored results in simplified Chinese, while users in Hong Kong will continue to receive uncensored results in traditional Chinese.

"Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over," warned David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer and senior vice president for corporate development.

Aware that the Chinese Government could block access to google.com.hk, Google has created a Mainland China service availability page to keep the world informed.

Is Google pulling out of China completely? See page 2.