Google to China: No more censorship!

Google is moving on the offensive against China by uncensoring their search engine and being redirecting it all to Google Hong Kong.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk.

Most of you may remember the reason why Google is so pissed off at China and they have a reason to. Although it was mentioned that the hacker was not getting support from the Chinese Government, the company is still hellbent on ensuring that the Google Hong Kong site is uncensored.

The company is also saying that the decision came from the executives in the United States and not from its China counterparts. Hopefully they won't be arrested for decisions that were out of their hands.

China responds to Google's Search Uncensorship

On the otherhand, the Chinese government is saying that Google needs to abide by their rules:

"Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks," said the official.

"This is totally wrong. We're uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts," the official said.

Is Google fighting for free information or just being a brat?

Is Google saying that they're "not evil" by imposing their ideas of free information in the web? Are they doing this for the good of the web or are they just pissed off because of the hacking incident? Why just now?

So many questions and there's quite a lot of analysis going on, but i think it's best to wait it out and see what happens in the end of this fight.

Will both sides will lose in the end?

This will be a landmark in web history whatever happens:

If Google gets its way with China, it's going to show how weak the country is against a Demcoracy-backed company, but may get the ire of some countries/societies that don't like foreign companies mucking around with their laws.

If China successfully kicks out Google or the company submits to Chinese rules (as it did before all this happened), it's going to leave a bad reputation for both parties. China will look like an even bigger bully and the company will lose face in front of the web community.

Will there be a middle ground? That's up to both China and Google to figure out.

A New Approach to China: an Update
China responds to Google

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• Google.cn now rerouting to Hong Kong domain, an 'entirely legal' workaround to censorship woes (engadget.com)