Friday, January 22, 2010

Google China Saga Continues

Illustration Bezinga.com

Google CEO Eric Schmidt remains committed to stay in China, according to statements made yesterday. As reported in a previous post, there was a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on a number of high profile computer companies in China and Google threatened to pull out of China unless it could provide uncensored results. According to today's Telegraph, Schmidt has confirmed that that Google and China have been "in conversation." Schmidt added that they wish to remain in China but that they would like to be there "on somewhat different terms" than they have in the past. Although Google has continued to censor searches according to Chinese law, sources within Google said there are no plans to revoke their earlier stand on censorship. Stated Schmitd, "We continue to follow their laws, we continue to offer censored results. But in a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there."

PC World offers a timeline of the Google/China incident.

The Financial Post reports that Microsoft has released a patch for Explorer to secure the breach through which someone was able to target Google and other companies. Instead of releasing it on Tuesdays, as they have done with other patches, this patch was made available as soon as it was ready.

As expected, Google's presence in China and their threat to pull out continues to be addressed in the political arena. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made unrestricted Internet access a top foreign-policy priority and urged China to investigate cyber intrusions that led Google Inc. to threaten to pull out of that country, the Wall Street Journal reports which also reported on China's reaction to Clinton's statements.

It will be interesting to see how all of this unfolds.

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