China and Google Dispute Heats Up

The last few days have seen increased tensions between the Chinese government's interest in maintaining censorship of the Google searches inside it's borders. Google has made announcements that it plans on closing it's Chinese site soon.

It appears that Google is no longer interested in continuing to censor it's search engine's results for it's Chinese site, Google.cn.

In January, Google said it might close it's Chinese Google search engine after it identified an attack on it's network in an attempt to reveal the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Google is in talks to see if a possible unfiltered version of Google.cn can be worked out.

The Wall Street Journal reports that "Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Wednesday he expects the company will soon reach a conclusion to its talks with the Chinese government. People familiar with the matter say the company could stop censoring Google.cn within weeks, but Google isn't likely to withdraw from the country entirely. "

Also stated in the article is that Li Yizhong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology stated in a press release that Google "will have to bear the consequences" if the search engine stops filtering search results.

On a somewhat related subject, talkandroid.com reports that Google has postponed it's release of the Nexus One handset in China. In my opinion, the future doesn't look very bright for internet and smartphone users in China.

http://news.techworld.com/networking/3217478/google-to-leave-china-soon-reports-say/?olo=rss
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703457104575121613604741940.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iuEA30SrPw0wfB5p1ESXCDtC089QD9EFO77G0