CHINA: Human rights groups have accused internet group Google of kowtowing to the world's most stringent internet censor, the Chinese government. Google has agreed to censor its search engine to secure greater access to the fastest-growing internet market in the world.
Google.cn, the company's new site aimed at boosting its market share in China, will filter politically sensitive material to satisfy authorities in Beijing, Google said. The new version could restrict access to thousands of politically incorrect terms and websites and make searching for information on controversial topics such as Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre even harder.
There are 111 million internet users in China and the number is rising swiftly, prompting a campaign by the Chinese government to keep an eye on the sector.
That is too big a market to ignore. A survey during the summer showed Google was losing market share to companies such as Beijing-based Baidu, in which it has a small stake.
Domestic giants Sohu and Baidu, along with China sites operated by Yahoo Inc and Microsoft, all routinely block searches on politically sensitive terms.
Google was working overtime on PR damage limitation, saying it planned to notify users when access had been restricted on certain search terms and arguing that it could play a more useful role by being in China rather than by boycotting it, despite the compromises involved. "While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," the California-based company said in a statement.
Google's Chinese-language version has been around for years, but has had to put up with blocks on the site. It said that by creating a unique address for China, it hoped to make its search engine more widely available and easier to use in the world's most populous country. Human rights groups said the move by Google was the latest example of a big corporation bending to the Chinese government's will.
"With this move, Google's motto 'do no evil' is in smithereens," said Alison Reynolds of the Free Tibet Campaign. She said the move was effectively an endorsement of censorship and repression.
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders described the launch of Google.cn as "a black day for freedom of expression in China" and said US firms were now bending to the same censorship rules as their Chinese competitors.
"But they continue to justify themselves by saying their presence has a long-term benefit," the press freedom group added, "yet the internet in China is becoming more and more isolated from the outside world and freedom of expression there is shrinking."
Google insisted that pulling out of China altogether would be far more damaging to freedom of communication in China. Its move in China comes less than a week after it resisted efforts by the US department of justice to make it disclose data on what people were searching for.
Its e-mail, chat-room and blogging services will not be available because of fears the government could demand users' personal information.
Chinese officials consider it a hothouse of subversive thought and the government keeps a tight rein on the internet and what users can access. Last year, Beijing recruited thousands of observers to watch the capital's cybercafés and internet service providers. About 40,000 officials monitor e-mail and websites.
The Communist Party's propaganda department has stepped up operations at "Office 1106", an organisation which trawls cyberspace for subversion. All websites, bloggers and bulletin-board operators must register with the government and Beijing has an internet police force believed responsible for shutting down domestic sites posting politically unacceptable content, blocking foreign news sites and jailing people for their online postings.
Last year, Yahoo was accused of supplying data to China that was used as evidence to jail a Chinese journalist for 10 years. Shi Tao, news editor at the Contemporary Business News in Hunan province, was jailed for leaking state secrets abroad, apparently using his Yahoo e-mail account.