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Digital
Google stop automatic redirect in China
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 30 June 2010
Google have stopped automatically rerouting Chinese web-users to its Hong Kong-based search engine in a bid to stop officials in the country for turning off its URL there.
As previously reported, Google shut down its specific Chinese service in March, partly because of concerns over government enforced censorship of its searches, and partly because of a cyber-attack on the web firm’s US servers that it was believed emanated from China.
Since then Chinese users who go to Google.cn have been automatically redirected to the company’s Hong Kong-based search engine, which has a lot in common with the old Chinese Google platform, but was always exempt from many of the Chinese government’s censorship requirements.
But Google’s operating licence in China is up for renewal, and the web firm hopes to secure that renewal, despite them stepping down active operations in the country and their frosty relations with Chinese officials.
The automatic redirect is known to particularly piss off the Chinese government, because users in the country won’t necessarily know they are being taken to a service not based in mainland China. Google bosses, therefore, seem to hope having a holding page at Google.cn which then offers the option to click through to their Hong Kong site is enough to secure a licence renewal.
It remains to be seen if they are right to hope such things.
