They claimed it was the result of restrictive new rules. GoDaddy, a domain-registration service, is one of those services that’s so broadly used that it’s hard to imagine an Internet without it. But China’s gonna get the chance, after GoDaddy balked at new rules for registering .cn domains, including color photos of those registering. As a result, they will no longer register new domains. Crazy. source
We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China.
Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond • Regarding the company’s final decision on handling the China problem. There’s a very good chance that China will censor the search engine on the mainland after this, but you can at least say they tried very hard to have it both ways. This is a win for human rights. Unfortunately, it may not be a win that does Chinese citizens a whole lot of good. Is it better to be unable to give uncensored information, or willfully censor by the rules of a country that is willing to make people drive long distances just to check e-mail? source
Now Google suddenly wants to break its promise, and if it’s not satisfied it will criticize China for a worsening of the investment environment. This is entirely unreasonable. What has changed is not China’s investment environment. It is Google itself.
Chinese official media source Xinhua • Regarding Google’s decision to move out of the Chinese market (a decision reported by the Financial Times today but not formally announced). To a degree, they’re totally correct. Yeah, Google changed. They decided that they couldn’t do censorship anymore, and were optimistic they could get China to bend for them. Not so much. source
One of the two schools is tied to the Chinese military. The National Security Administration’s investigation into Google’s hacking claims has led to Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School. Jiaotong in particular has one of the country’s strongest computer science programs, while Lanxiang is directly tied to the Chinese military. What does this mean all mean? It means that it may have been rooted in China even if the government itself wasn’t involved. This could get interesting. source