China Claims Google Didn’t Report Hacking Attack

The already convoluted standoff between Google and China just took on a new layer of mystery. Reports coming out of the annual parliamentary session in Beijing cite Chinese officials giving conflicting accounts of whether Google is engaged in negotiations with the government about keeping its search engine up and running in that country.

Datamation has the details about the latest twists and turns in the unfolding drama of Google’s China problem.

The standoff between Google and the Chinese government took another turn this weekend, with state officials saying that the search giant had not come forward with a formal complaint about the hacking attacks that prompted it to threaten to shutter its operations in the country.

The state-run news agency Xinhua and newspaper China Daily both reported that Miao Wei, the vice minister of the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), claimed that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) hadn’t reported the attacks to state authorities or sought negotiations regarding China’s Internet censorship rules. In January, Google said it would pull out of China if the government continued to block certain Web sites, claiming that a wave of attacks emanating from that country had targeted its corporate infrastructure and attempted to access the Gmail accounts of human rights advocates.

“We have yet to have any direct contacts or negotiations with them on this topic,” Miao told China Daily.

“If Google decides to continue its business in China and abides by China’s laws, it’s welcome to stay,” he said, adding that if the company decides to pull out of the country, “it must go through certain procedures according to the law.”

Read the full story at Datamation:


China Says Google Never Filed Complaint in Hacking Case