China Issues Veiled Response to Google

From DailyTech: The battle between Google and the Chinese government is heating up. China is one of the most prolific blockers of internet content in the world. The country has a myriad of laws on the books that govern what types of content can be posted or viewed on the internet. The Chinese government has been harsh in its crack down on journalists and bloggers who post unauthorized information on the internet.

Google Announced yesterday that it might leave the search business in China after a hacking attack resulted in the theft of valuable source code and intellectual property owned by Google. Google also cited rampant hacking of email accounts as another reason it is considering vacating the Chinese market.

Google Chief Legal counsel David Drummond wrote at the time Google made the announcement, "In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different."

To this point, Google has adhered to Chinese law by censoring and blocking content deemed objectionable by the Chinese government. Google has announced that it intends to stop censoring its content in China and will seek to make an agreement with the Chinese government. The official response from China didn’t specifically name Google, but the intention was clear.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, "The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what content can be spread on the Internet." The Chinese government also stated that it welcomed global internet firms that obeyed the laws in China.

Google has stated that it wants to come to an agreement with China that would allow it to offer unfiltered searches and that it would be removing the restrictions on searched in the coming weeks.

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