Google Caves To China, Halts Hong Kong Search Redirect
David Drummond, Google senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, said in a company blog post that the decision to put the brakes on the redirect and revert back to Google.cn was partly based on threats of non-renewals.
"It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable, and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it's up for renewal on June 30)," Drummond said in the blog post. "Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial Web site like Google.cn -- so Google would effectively go dark in China."
Clearly that option was not acceptable to Google executives, who attempted to make a small compromise with the nation of almost 1.5 billion current and potential users.
Instead of automatically redirecting all Google users to google.com.hk, the company is bringing a small percentage of users to a landing page on Google.cn via a link to Google.com.hk. Drummond said that Google planned to end the redirect entirely within the new few days, which enabled the company to confidently resubmit its ICP license renewal application.
"This approach ensures we stay true to our commitment not to censor our results on Google.cn and gives users access to all of our services from one page," Drummond said.
The restored Google.cn would allow users to conduct Web searches or continue to use services like music and text translate, which would be provided locally without filtering.
The change follows three months after Google started redirecting traffic from its censored China-based Google.cn to a less-regulated Google.hk, citing censorship issues, among other things. Mainland China's Google.cn is much more heavily regulated than its Hong Kong counterpart, google.com.hk.
Google's plans to move out of mainland China are another chapter in the ongoing saga of soured relations with the country. Tensions escalated to an all-time high in January, when cyber attacks thought to be sourced from China were launched on the networks of Google and more than 30 other multinational companies in an effort to lift intellectual property. Later that same month, a round of cyber attacks targeted Gmail account holders.
Google executives claimed they have walked this tight rope in an attempt to appease all sides.
"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law," Drummond said. "We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via Google.cn."