Google is not backing down from its efforts to provide uncensored search results in China and has begun offering them via clever workaround. Datamation reports on the fallout from Google’s decision to offer uncensored results and what it could mean to its business interests there including Android for mobile devices.
Someone at Google must be watching the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament, because that was quite a good head fake move the company made on the Chinese government.
After declaring it was prepared to shut down its Chinese search engine rather than adhere to continued censorship restrictions on search results, Google surprised everyone by taking a different path. On Monday, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced it was redirecting search traffic at its Google.cn site on the mainland to Google.com.hk in Hong Kong, where China doesn’t enforce the same censorship rules.
The move was immediately blasted by Chinese officials. In making the announcement, Google said it realizes the Chinese government may respond by blocking access to the Hong Kong site. In fact, the government wasted no time blocking results and links to what it considers objectionable content, just as it had for Google.cn.
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