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Google "99.9 pct" sure to shut China search engine: report
The Google logo is seen on the top of its China headquarters building behind a road surveillance camera in Beijing January 26, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee
SHANGHAI |
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Talks with China over censorship have reached an apparent impasse and Google, the world's largest search engine, is now "99.9 percent" certain to shut its Chinese search engine, the Financial Times said on Saturday.
It said in a report on its website Google had drawn up detailed plans for closing its Chinese search engine.
The newspaper cited a person familiar with the company's thinking as saying that, while a decision could be made very soon, Google was likely to take some time to follow through with its plans.
That would be in order to bring about an orderly closure as the company takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by authorities, it said.
China warned Google on Friday against flouting the country's laws, as expectations grow for a resolution to a public battle over censorship and cyber-security.
Google shocked business and political circles in January when it threatened to pull out of China if it could not offer an unfiltered Chinese search engine. The threat came after cyber attacks originating from China on it and about 30 other firms.
"If you don't respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you," China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, told reporters on Friday in answer to a question on what China would do if Google.cn simply stopped filtering search results.
That came after the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, said on Wednesday he hoped to announce soon a result to talks with Chinese authorities on offering an uncensored search engine in China.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shares oversight of the Chinese Internet with a number of other bodies. Still more bureaucracies are involved in matters of foreign investment, complicating the Chinese government's response to Google's challenge.
(Reporting by Jason Subler; Editing by Paul Tait).
OH！ My God ! NO ! I cann’t live without google. I am a Chinese. I love Google.
No!
Google will still be there, but no more google.cn…
Another story of failure, just like ebay.
Sigh…
“If you don’t respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you,” China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong
But what happens when the government itself doesn’t obey the law?!
Sounds like the jobs in Google China were menial and not important. After all Google degradingly admitted that China was not that important to its business. And all the drama for special treatment was an excuse to pull out. Go Baidu!
I’m amazed by all the negative comments about this. Google is risking losing TENS~HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars in China over this and pissing off the largest country in the world. All to stand up for people’s rights. Lets not forget that Yahoo has in past given up user information on activists in China which resulted in them dissapearing from their homes.
This is a really impressive thing for a company so large to do.
And to those that thing google was failing in china: Google has 43% marketshare in china. It has only been available for a few years. And in the last 8 months they have GAINED 25% compared to Baidu (they took 13%, Baidu lost 12%). They have been projected to be the dominant search engine within a few months.
No matter how much the Government of any Country tries to censor, someone will ALWAYS find a way around it. Do the people of China realize that there are more of them than the government and the army combined. Why don’t they tell the government to piss off?
Google should just tell China to stuff and watch the riots in the streets.
