Techie
6:14 PM | Saturday | 13 March 2010

Forget the hundreds of millions of Internet users in China and the hundreds of millions or billions an Internet firm could make out of them. Google has sent a bold message that it might quit operations in China after the recent cyber attacks on the search-engine giant.

The attacks, which originated in China, targeted Google's corporate infrastructure and were highly sophisticated, resulting in the theft of the company's intellectual property. Most of the attacks might have been blocked, with only minor information stolen, but evidence proved that the attackers were trying to get into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists. Also, their investigation showed that besides Google, at least 20 other large companies were likewise targeted.

According to a blog post by David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, the recent attacks, together with China's efforts to limit free speech on the Internet in recent years, have led the company to review the feasibility of continuing its operations there. They have also decided to stop censoring results on Google.cn (Google's Chinese version which was launched in January 2006).

"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," stated Drummond. He added that they're aware that their decision might ultimately mean shutting down business operations in China.

Via Gizmodo

Source Google Blog