Google stops censoring Chinese results, office remains open

The controversy between Google and the Chinese Government has continued to escalate, with Google no longer censoring its Chinese language search engine.

But despite rumours the company would abandon its Chinese operations, Google has confirmed it will still operate in the country and place a heavy emphasis on its R&D initiatives.

While reports over the past few weeks including this yesterday, have indicated Google would pull out of the country altogether, the company has instead chosen to no longer filter its search results which it was doing in response to requests from the Chinese Government.

In a statement this morning, chief legal officer David Drummond said the decision comes after the company’s investigations into cyber attacks, which were designed to take down Gmail accounts and the websites of various software companies.

The company determined these attacks came from within China’s borders, and that a number of attempts over the past 12 months to block popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter, led the business to conclude it could no longer censor results.

“Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk,” he said.

“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.”

It was suspected for some time that Google would abandon its Chinese operations altogether, fuelled by rumours from Chinese media reports. But Drummond said the company will still operate and continue with business as usual.

“In terms of Google’s wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk.”

“Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them.”

The company has gone out of its way to emphasise the legality of its latest move, saying that “we believe this new approach of providing uncensored search… is a sensible solution… it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information”.

But despite the workaround, Drummond said the Chinese Government can still block the site at any time. As a result, Google will be monitoring access issues and has created an entirely new page to see which services are available in China at any given time.