Story behind Google’s dispute with Chinese government

By Boxun
Jan 12, 2010 – 11:45:11 PM

Goolge shocks the world by stating: “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.”

Boxun reporter immediately contacted one official from Propaganda Department. The official says that Google is more likely to leave China sooner or later. It will be hard for Google to accept China’s new requirement: China wants Google to provide searching result prioritized by the government, not by the “engine”. In another word, Google.cn is expected to show internet users Xinhua News, People’s Daily on the top. This is well beyond “sanitizes” search results.
Boxun learned that Baidu.com has already started to prioritize searching results by following the government’s order.
Google’s statement should be applauded. In the past years, how many American companies have kneeled down for getting business in China. People still remember that three journalists received heavy sentence after Yahoo provided their Yahoo mail’s information to the authority. Yahoo Group also deleted Boxun’s email list without explanation a few days before June 4th in 2002 (http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2002/05/200205290135.shtml )
We also should mention that Skype is forcing users in China to use a Tom version skype, it looks the same as the one in the USA, but it does censorship.
Google stands up on its own, there are probably more that can be done in the USA by government, media, and all people. Most of these companies are public company listed in NASDAQ (USA), even Baidu may have over 51% owned by American investors. Should Baidu, Sina do what ever they want to do in China? Not only censorship, but they may providing user’s information that lead many arrests in China.
Boxun’s report in Chinese:

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2010/01/201001131208.shtml