Google to Stop Redirecting Chinese Users to Hong Kong

By Brad Stone and David Barboza | The New York Times
June 29, 2010

In an effort to appease Beijing as it seeks to renew its license to operate in mainland China, Google plans to stop automatically redirecting Chinese users to its Hong Kong site.

For the last three months, Google has found a clever way to overcome its ethical objections to self-censoring search results on its Web site for mainland China, google.cn. It has automatically redirected Chinese users to an uncensored search site, google.com.hk, maintained on the company's servers in Hong Kong.

There was only one problem with this solution: the Chinese government objected to it.

Late Monday in the United States, Google acknowledged those objections in a blog post written by David Drummond, its chief legal officer. Mr. Drummond wrote that the Chinese government was ready to reject Google's application for renewal of its Internet Content Provider license, which would effectively mean the company would have to shut down its Web site in the country entirely. The license renewal application is due on Wednesday.

Mr. Drummond wrote that in an effort to continue to serve Google's Chinese users while placating the government, the company is proposing a compromise. In the next few days, it will stop automatically redirecting users to its Hong Kong site.

Instead, Chinese users will see a page at google.cn, which offers a single link to the Hong Kong site, where they can conduct searches or use other Google services, like translation and music, that require no filtering.

The company said it had resubmitted its content provider license based on this approach and hopes the Chinese government will find it more palatable. If the government continues to object, Google would lose its ability to operate a Web site in China altogether.

Google appears to have made the compromise out of concern that Beijing is preparing to entirely shut down its google.cn, which could confuse users in China by failing to notify them that they can reach the Hong Kong site. Because users have grown accustomed to google.cn it could hurt Google's traffic in China, the world's largest Internet market.

"If the Chinese government isn't happy with them running uncensored search results out of the Hong Kong site -- I don't see why they'll be any happier just because it becomes one click away," Danny Sullivan, who runs the search-analysis Web site Search Engine Land, told Bloomberg News.

China's foreign ministry on Tuesday declined to comment.

"This approach ensures we stay true to our commitment not to censor our results on google.cn and gives users access to all of our services from one page," Mr. Drummond wrote.

"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law," he continued. "We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via google.cn."

Under the current setup in mainland China, search results are still censored. People in the mainland can conduct a search and see the results but often they can't open the citation because those results are censored by the government.

Up until January, Google had censored search results on behalf of the government in Beijing. Google had come under intense criticism from civil rights advocates in the West, and Google in January announced it would no longer do the censoring.

"As a company we aspire to make information available to users everywhere, including China," Mr. Drummond wrote. "It's why we have worked so hard to keep Google.cn alive, as well as to continue our research and development work in China."

Baidu, China's leading search engine, will start hiring software engineers directly from the United States early next month, as it seeks to expand its technological capabilities and raise its global profile, Reuters reported from Shanghai on Tuesday. Baidu stands to be the biggest beneficiary in China's search sector following Google's problems in the country.

Baidu plans to hire 30 mid- to senior-level software engineers from Silicon Valley at a job fair on July 10 to drive new technology projects, its first direct hiring from the United States, a Baidu spokesman said.

"Baidu believes that talent is the key to our success as a company, and we go where ever the best talent can be found, whether here in China or in Silicon Valley," Zheng Bin, Baidu's human resources director said in a statement to Reuters. "As we develop more and more advanced search technologies, our need for world-class talent will only continue to increase."

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