The war between search giants Google and the Chinese government is raging on, with Google trying another approach at keeping Google.cn live without censoring any results.
The ongoing disagreement – dubbed the ‘Great Firewall of China’ – began earlier this year after Google’s announcement that they were going to stop censoring results on Google.cn. In March, Google implemented a redirect which sent all visitors from .cn to their Hong Kong page Google.com.hk. According to a blog posted by Google today, the Chinese government has declared it ‘unacceptable’ and won’t allow Google to continue operating in the country unless it is removed and results are appropriately filtered.
In yet another attempt to appease the government without censoring their results, Google are going to try another approach. Rather than users being redirected to the Hong Kong site, they will be shown a landing page which links to .com.hk, which will – they hope – allow Google to provide unfiltered searching while still providing .cn services.
Internet Marketing
Of course, the simplest solution would be for Google to simply give up on China, but that doesn’t make the most financial sense. From an internet marketing perspective, the Chinese market is potentially far too big to ignore and leave behind, but Google would lose a significant amount of face if they censor their results. Ultimately, whatever the response from Chinese government is, it’s hard to imagine that this will be the last we hear of Google China.
Related posts: