Google to End Censorship or Shut Down in China

When Google launched its localized service in China, Google.cn, in January 2006 it agreed to censor search results as requested by the Chinese government, but it is now reconsidering that decision following cyber attacks originating in China that attempted to gain access to human rights activists’ Gmail accounts. According a post on Google’s blog, it witnessed a large-scale attack in December that attempted to gain access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. These attacks largely failed, with only two accounts believed to have been hacked and with only minimal information from these accounts being made available to hackers. As part of its investigation into the attacks, Google has also uncovered many accounts belonging to users based in the United States, China and Europe who advocate human rights in China which have been accessed by third parties. However, access to these accounts was not gained as a result of the aforementioned attacks, but rather by the use of phishing scams and malware. In response, Google has made security improvements to better protect its users.

These attacks and the investigation that followed have led Google to change its censorship policy. Over the next few weeks, it will be discussing the possibility of operating a censorship-free search engine with the Chinese government. If that is not possible, Google.cn will be shut down.