BEIJING — Google said Tuesday that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether, citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems and China’s attempts to “limit free speech on the Web.”
The move, if followed through, would be a highly unusual rebuke of China by one of the largest and most admired technology companies, which had for years coveted China’s 300 million Web users.
Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.
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.....Google’s response amounted to an unambiguous repudiation of its own five-year courtship of the vast China market, which most major multinational companies consider crucial to their growth prospects. It is also likely to enrage the Chinese authorities, who deny that they censor the Internet and are accustomed to having major foreign companies adapt their practices to Chinese norms.
The company said it would try to negotiate a new arrangement to provide uncensored results on its search site, http://google.cn/. But that is a highly unlikely prospect in a country that has the most sweeping Web filtering system in the world. Google said it would otherwise cease to run http://google.cn/ and would consider shutting its offices in China,
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Google executives have privately fretted for years that the company’s decision to censor the search results on http://google.cn/, to filter out topics banned by Chinese censors, was out of sync with the company’s official motto, “Don’t be evil.”.....
..Completo no NY Times de hj
The move, if followed through, would be a highly unusual rebuke of China by one of the largest and most admired technology companies, which had for years coveted China’s 300 million Web users.
Since arriving here in 2006 under an arrangement with the government that purged its Chinese search results of banned topics, Google has come under fire for abetting a system that increasingly restricts what citizens can read online.
..
.....Google’s response amounted to an unambiguous repudiation of its own five-year courtship of the vast China market, which most major multinational companies consider crucial to their growth prospects. It is also likely to enrage the Chinese authorities, who deny that they censor the Internet and are accustomed to having major foreign companies adapt their practices to Chinese norms.
The company said it would try to negotiate a new arrangement to provide uncensored results on its search site, http://google.cn/. But that is a highly unlikely prospect in a country that has the most sweeping Web filtering system in the world. Google said it would otherwise cease to run http://google.cn/ and would consider shutting its offices in China,
...
Google executives have privately fretted for years that the company’s decision to censor the search results on http://google.cn/, to filter out topics banned by Chinese censors, was out of sync with the company’s official motto, “Don’t be evil.”.....
..Completo no NY Times de hj