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Google China uncensors verboten tank man

Search engine breaks law against Google will

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Google's Chinese search engine was defying local law on Tuesday by returning links involving the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and the Xinjiang independence movement, according to a report from NBC News.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company tells NBC that despite its January 12 announcement that it has decided to "no longer" censor search results in China, it is continuing to do so. ""We have not changed our operations," the web giant said.

Nonetheless, NBC was able to access previously-censored links from Google.cn, including the famous 1989 image of a lone man blocking a line of Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square. A search for "tank man" in Chinese characters on the search engine returned just one link to the photo - though several are available from the company's engine overseas.

Meanwhile, searching for "Tiananmen Square massacre", "Xinjiang independence" and "Tibet Information Network" turned up long lists of previously censored results.

NBC did say, however, that search results were erratic and that in some cases, access to verboten sites was indeed denied. One can only assume that Google.cn was experiencing some sort of wonderfully convenient technical difficulties. Or that someone was having some fun.

In mid-January, in response to an alleged Chinese hack on its internal systems, Google said it would enter talks with the Chinese government to determine "the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all". But talks continue to drag on - apparently - and Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the company has "no timetable" for their completion.

This has caused "extreme pain" for Google's Chinese ad partners, who are demanding that the web giant explain how they will be compensated if it shuts its Chinese search engine or leaves the country entirely. ®

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Latest Comments

Censoring

IIRC, Google was told to censor the search results for certain queries to comply with Chinese law. However, whereas most ISPs and search engines apparently just return a HTTP error, Google apparently showed a page saying something to the effect of "Sorry, but I can't allow you to do that" - so people knew they'd been filtered, rather than the page being down.

I wonder what people's reaction would have been if, instead of filtering the content, Google had put up an intermediate page saying something to the effect of "We have been requested to filter this content. You may click on the link below to access it, but you do so at your own risk." In that case, Google would still be informing its users about 'naughty' content, but simultaneously still allowing access to it...

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Anonymous Coward

Captain obvious

Even if google.cn is closed down, there will still be http://www.google.com.tw/, http://www.google.com.sg/, http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=zh-CN ...

Yawn. The more you think about it, the more it is about nothing.

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Nice substitution argument

You sir, are a troll.

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