China warns Google partners to toe line
Written on March 19, 2010
Chinese authorities have reportedly warned Google Inc.'s partners that they must observe the country's censorship laws, too.
The New York Times cited an unnamed "industry expert" who said some big Google Web partners were told Friday to ready backup plans in case Google stops censoring search results on its local Chinese-language search engine.
The paper said, however, that Google is more likely to simply shut down the search engine it runs in China rather than try to keep it up without censorship. It cited unnamed people "with knowledge of the situation" for that information.
Google has filtered out search results that China objects to since it opened its service in that country four years ago, including pornography and political content on topics like Chinese human rights issues.
But in January Google said it would stop this practice in the wake of cyber attacks that it traced to China that it said had hacked into the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The announcement triggered an international debate over Internet censorship and espionage. China has strongly denied any involvement.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last week that negotiations about the search company's future in China were nearly concluded but a high level Chinese authority issued a new warning about censorship rules on Friday.
The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources Friday who said Google could stop censoring its China site within weeks but is not likely to withdraw from the country entirely. It reported that the company could make individual agreements to operate parts of its business in China.
For complete coverage by the Business Journal of the Google cyber attacks, click here.
Filed in: money.