Last Friday despite problems and concerns, the Chinese government in Beijing granted Google a renewal for its Internet content provider license.  China is currently the world’s largest single market of Internet users due to its overwhelming population.  Without the license Google would be no longer able to operate in China, so it’s a pretty big deal.   The most recent conflict was over Google’s decision to cease censoring search results – as per the Chinese government’s demands.  Why did Google make this move?  Well frankly, Google is the pro for freedom of speech, and I think that they are simply sick of China trying to regulate the Internet and telling them how to do business.  According to Wikipedia, the censorship in place is similar to a blindfolded person throwing darts at a spinning board with a list of “potential threat” websites on it.  Not all sites remain blocked; some are unblocked or blocked at the whim of a high up government official who might have a positive story about himself on it. Could you imagine trying to keep up with the Internet and censor it accurately??  We have a hard enough time at work keeping the porn sites blocked. And we are using a world-class Internet categorization software suite to help us!   Anyway, to renew their license in China, Google was forced to comply with Chinese government demands and continue filtering results on their www.gooogle.cn (Google China) page.  As a compromise, Google has posted a direct link to www.google.hk (Google Hong Kong) advertising unfiltered search results.

Are you a Google.hk or Google.cn?  We’d love to hear some feedback about what you think about this ongoing drama between China and Google! I have long noticed select Groovy posters to have a google bias, not sure why that is though. Does China need Google? No. Does Google need China? Well sure, of course. They make money on people surfing the internet and clicking their ads. Dumping China would be leaving about a billion web surfers on the table and the true fact is the Stock holders are the real owners of Google and I don’t think they would put up with that for a moment. I agree with you, it’s all about greed period. Do no evil… bah Comment Name * Email *

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