Google and China Improve Ties 07/14/10

Google, the world’s largest Internet search engine, has renewed its search provision with China, the most populous country in the world, following a long-running dispute.

The license for Google to operate in China has been re-instigated with the Chinese authorities saying Google has pledged not to provide any law-breaking content to Chinese users.

Google China is a subsidiary of Google.Com and ranks as the number two search engine in the People’s Republic of China, after Baidu, a joint China and Japanese search engine which is proactively censored in line with Chinese Government regulations.

Google says it has been given the Ok to work in China once more after it agreed to stop automatically re-routing users of Google.cn to the Google site in Hong Kong, which offers simplified Chinese search results.

Search requests at Google China from mainland China now need an additional mouse click before taking web surfers to Google’s Hong Kong site.

In what is only a relatively small concession the move is being seen as significant, showing the ability of Google and the Chinese authorities to communicate and come to an agreement. It is a definite thawing of the frosty relationship of recent years.

As well as being an opportunity for Google to claim success on promoting anti-censorship in China, and showing the world it is allowing access to un censored content, the move is also largely an economic one on behalf of the two sides.

With the Chinese economy growing at a staggering rate and expected to dominate in coming years Google, presumably does not want to be left out. The potential ad click revenues in China alone for Google are expected to grow to tens of billions of dollars in coming years. Chinese business also stands to gain economic advantages from Google’s improved presence in China.

The deal seems to make good sense all round. Google does not miss out on potentially huge revenues. On China’s part they are seen to be opening up to greater freedoms while both Google’s and China’s principles appear to remain intact. It also indicates the stand off is over, a toning down of all the negative publicity that has been created for both parties in the past.

A Chinese official has said the Google licence has been renewed for another year.

The running controversy over Google and China began with online and media speculation over the rights and wrongs of Google’s involvement in China. The controversy between China and Google really hitting the headlines in 2009 when Chinese authorities blocked access to Google owned YouTube and starting preventing access to other Google online search services as it saw fit.

In March 2010 Google started to redirect all search queries from Google.cn to Google.com.hk – Google Hong Kong - bypassing Chinese censors and offering uncensored simplified Chinese search results to Chinese web surfers.

The Chinese Government is thought to operate the world’s most intense system of web monitoring. The Chinese authorities block pornographic sites as well as those causing any political embarrassment. Famously a search for Tiananmen Square in Google.com and Google.cn brings very different results, with no mention of the massacre which took place in 1989 on China’s version of Google.

The current agreement while being seen as a mature compromise by many will also generate controversy amongst many bloggers and media commentators who will be quick to accuse Google of capitulation and surrender to the Chinese authorities.