Google Ends Controversial Censorship in China
On Monday, March 22nd 2010, Google announced its plan to end the controversial censorship of their search engine in China (Google.cn), which has been ongoing since the Google-China agreement in January 2006. This announcement comes on the heels of several December 2009 hacking incidents which reportedly originated in China and targeted the Gmail accounts of many human rights activists.
Chinese officials claim Google’s revocation of their agreement is a breach of the 2006 contract which stipulated censorship was a non-negotiable legal requirement to Google’s operations in that country. Google, with its “don’t be evil” mantra, has faced opposition to its 2006 decision and now comes under some fire for violating their contract while intending to remain in China on their own terms: they have now routed their Chinese mainland traffic to their “uncensored” version in Hong Kong (Google.hk), which, as a former British colony, is now a special administrative region and enjoys unfiltered internet access and other liberties.
It is unknown how long and how much of these search results will get past the “Great (fire)Wall” of Beijing.
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