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Internet Google.com Now Blocked in China
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - June 7, 2006 5:19 PM
Print 33 comment(s) - last by oTAL.. on Jun 9 at 9:01 AM
Google did agree to censor material in China

US companies trying to do business in China have done some things that would not be acceptable in the United States.  Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Skype have all agreed to censor material to some extent to be allowed to operate in China.  Yahoo has also allegedly helped the restrictive Chinese government arrest and jail several journalists.  Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google, has admitted that Google did contradict its principles after censoring material in China.  The company is now trying to make the deal work before deciding whether or not to stop censoring material. 

Google has now been blocked in China by Chinese authorities, according to Reporters Without Borders, a media watchdog group.  Users across the country have reported problems accessing the site for the past several days.  Reporters Without Borders also reported that Google Mail and Google News is also being blocked.  But Google.cn, the Chinese language version of Google, is still running normally. 

Although Google is surrounded by controversy in China, the company is protecting the rights of its users in the US.  The company has passionately fought against the Department of Justice's request to keep records of where visitors go while visiting Google.  Google has also claimed that it has not helped the National Security Agency collect data without proper warrants.

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ISP?
By Alphafox78 on 6/7/2006 5:25:10 PM , Rating: 2
Is china running like winproxy or something that they can limit web sites? they must have a hudge cpu processing url restrictions..
just uncheck use proxy!!




RE: ISP?
By glennpratt on 6/7/2006 5:33:54 PM , Rating: 2
A) You might wan't to look into transparent proxies if you think that is the solution.
B) Winproxy isn't exactly the grade of tech your looking at here. Think hardware, or more to the point, think Cisco. Really, to block google.com you don't even need a proxy, you can block that at the routers.


RE: ISP?
By bob661 on 6/7/2006 5:46:50 PM , Rating: 4
Anonymizers must be pretty popular in China.


RE: ISP?
By caboosemoose on 6/7/2006 6:19:51 PM , Rating: 4
Anonymizers must be pretty blocked in China...


RE: ISP?
By Tsuwamono on 6/7/2006 9:09:04 PM , Rating: 2
Im sorry but i have to say that was probably the funniest thing i have seen all day

"Anonymizers must be pretty popular in china"
....
....
"Anonymizers must be pretty blocked in China"

Kodus to you man. LoL and i was in a bad mood before i read that


RE: ISP?
By Trisped on 6/8/2006 1:19:02 PM , Rating: 2
No, not Cisco, think router. Cisco is not the only maker of routers. All routers can be set up with firewalls on each port that block IPs, ports, and MAC.

Since there are a very limited number of connections to computers outside China, I expect that it was an easy process to block the external Google services.


Blocked where?
By uberartist on 6/7/2006 11:39:23 PM , Rating: 3
I've been working/living in China for the past 3 years. Sitting at a computer in Wuhan as I type this. Just got done reading Google news, before that checked my Gmail. Probably ran about 100 Google searches over the past 3 days...what's the problem? No, I don't use google.cn, I can't read Chinese. And no, I'm not using a proxy or some 1337 haxor trick, I only turn those on once in a while if I need wikipedia or bbc news. (slower than surfing without a proxy) Maybe it's just having some problems in a particular part of China? You will not be allowed to access Google if you (or someone sharing your IP range) searches for "bad" things, but it comes back after 5 minutes.

I know you guys are all hyped on saying "Google is evil" for playing along with China, but look at it this way: If Google (and the others) stand firm, then there are plenty of Chinese companies that would be more than happy to take their place as the main search engines of China. Fast foward 5 years, when China isn't so restrictive of the net. China is the biggest economy and biggest online population in the world. Baidu is therefore the leading search engine in the world. If Google isn't here now, they won't be here in the future. "Do no evil, unless it's the only way to stay alive."

The major players in this world already realize where this is all going. They are playing the game pretty smart, even if individuals on message boards percieve it as evil. When a few years from now the USA is still a leading force in the world economy, you can have the evil companies to thank for it. If they took the general public's advise on who to do or not do buisiness with, the USA would be walking the plank in terms of the future global economy.




RE: Blocked where?
By mindless1 on 6/8/2006 3:51:56 AM , Rating: 2
"If Google (and the others) stand firm, then there are plenty of Chinese companies that would be more than happy to take their place as the main search engines of China."

Well yes, that is exactly what they want, a Chinese owned search engine under their control to be more than just dominant.


RE: Blocked where?
By uberartist on 6/8/2006 9:28:09 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Well yes, that is exactly what they want, a Chinese owned search engine under their control to be more than just dominant.


I think you misunderstood me. The Chinese government (mostly) is not playing favorites here. They aren't trying to create conditions favorable to Chinese companies (in this particular situation), they just want the search engine companies to play by their rules. None of these rules are "special" for foriegn companies, and considering what they could be doing to lock them out of the market, it's nice to see how open they are. But they do still have rules they want everyone to follow. And if you don't get in line, you don't get to play in their backyard.

I think you will see that the big companies in play here will last beyond the tight leash control we are seeing from the current government. China is evolving, maybe too slowly for some, but everything is going in a positive direction. And in the end, I'd rather see Google #1 in China, because when they do finally get more control over what they report to who here, they will make a better moral choice (or so I hope).


RE: Blocked where?
By jskirwin on 6/8/2006 10:43:23 AM , Rating: 3
What makes a company "American"?

Is it the location of its headquarters?

ING's headquarters is in the Netherlands but it employs a couple thousand workers in my area.

Meanwhile the bulk of IBM's workforce will soon be located in India.

Which of these companies is more "American"?

Isn't the idea that we should champion Google because it's American a bit antiquated? Who cares if Baidu becomes more popular in China. I don't own stock in Google, so I don't.

If Globalization is so great, the nationality of firms shouldn't matter. All that should matter is the quality of the product.

Right?


RE: Blocked where?
By crystal clear on 6/8/2006 11:34:55 AM , Rating: 2
Companies (US) pay billions of TAX DOLLARS-JUST REMEMBER THAT.
You want their TAX dollars in return give nothing-in short
YOU dont want me but You want my money.
This applies not only to US Companies but all companies paying TAXES to their respective countries.
Govts should take responsibility to support companies if they want those billions of TAX DOLLARS.


RE: Blocked where?
By jskirwin on 6/8/2006 12:40:32 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Govts should take responsibility to support companies if they want those billions of TAX DOLLARS.


Wrong. They don't pay billions - that's why they incorporate in Delaware. Some, like Accenture, are too cheap to do that so they incorporate in Bermuda.

The taxes are paid by the shareholders: that's where the government gets its cash. When you sell shares in a company, it doesn't matter whether that company is American or foreign: if you made money on the sale you get taxed.

You guys want it both ways: You want the US gov't to support "American" companies by shovelling them taxpayer cash, and then you want the companies to "act globally" by hiring the cheapest labor they can find abroad AND supporting a regime that is a strategic competitor of the United States.



By hmurchison on 6/7/2006 7:53:48 PM , Rating: 2
;) Guess my shopping days are over.




By jskirwin on 6/7/2006 9:43:21 PM , Rating: 2
No Home Depot, Target, Lowes, Wal-Mart, CompUSA, Staples, Office Depot...

For you.

And I share your sentiments.


By peternelson on 6/8/2006 5:07:01 AM , Rating: 2

Oh, well, sorry to hear you won't be using ANY laptop computers in future then.

You need to think whether your principles are worth more than your desire for a laptop.


By Trisped on 6/8/2006 1:22:01 PM , Rating: 2
And here I thought computers were all made in Taiwan.


By oTAL on 6/9/2006 9:01:30 AM , Rating: 2
yeah well... you tought wrong... I think over 90% of the world production (every big brand) is made in mainland china these days...


By PandaBear on 6/8/2006 2:35:59 PM , Rating: 2
If you have no principle, you can sell your @ss as a male prostitute and get a laptop.


And?
By archermoo on 6/7/2006 5:40:05 PM , Rating: 2
Maybe I'm mistaken, but my understanding was the whole point of google.cn getting set up was that they were blocking the normal google.com interface to restrict what searches their citizens have access to.




RE: And?
By Le Québécois on 6/7/2006 7:53:26 PM , Rating: 2
No you're not. Like you I think it's part of the deal made by Google. Block Google.com and open a censored version of it and naming it google.cn.


RE: And?
By Trisped on 6/8/2006 1:20:50 PM , Rating: 2
The deal was google would provide a China approved engine from inside the country to better serve their users there. China had, in the past, blocked google.com and its services even before the new site was planned.


Is it really that different?
By qbek on 6/7/2006 10:16:09 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
US companies trying to do business in China have done some things that would not be acceptable in the United States .


I am not so sure about that. Google removes results in the US, too:

http://www.google.com/search?q=kazaalite

Scale might be different, principles are the same.




RE: Is it really that different?
By Plasmoid on 6/8/2006 7:47:14 AM , Rating: 2
Thats whats often mixed. That, and the censoring of nazi based searches in France and Germany, which isnt all that different from what they are doing with google.cn


By PrinceGaz on 6/8/2006 3:47:23 PM , Rating: 2
The funny thing is if you do that search, at the bottom when you click on the link to read the complaint, you get a list of all the sites they wanted to remove. It's even better than if they hadn't been removed because you *know* that those are the sites you were looking for :)


Whats this?
By Trisped on 6/8/2006 1:10:11 PM , Rating: 2
Google provides search services to the Chinese public and they get blasted because they are censored, and the WHOLE TIME people could still access google.com?

How stupid is THAT! If anything, google.cn was a blessing to the users because they could use it for their standard searches rather then bottle necking the google.com ports into china (which was reported as being very bad, drop outs, slow loads, over taxed connection, etc). So they blocked google.com? So what? How long before people start using those proxy sites that allow you to view blocked sites? And with so many losing access to their mail sites I expect that it won't take long at all for the trend to catch on.




RE: Whats this?
By Trisped on 6/8/2006 1:25:21 PM , Rating: 2
By reading the posts it looks like google.com isn't really blocked from China, so it looks like this is just a big to-do about nothing.


RE: Whats this?
By TomZ on 6/8/2006 1:45:34 PM , Rating: 2
I think the situation is more complicated than that, because why would there be such fuss over censorship at google.cn if google.com is widely available and not censored? It doesn't really make sense.

Is is maybe that the Chinese-language content at google.cn is censored, but that the Chinese government doesn't care that the English-language content at google.com is not censored?


It's a shame of China
By figroc on 6/7/2006 10:21:56 PM , Rating: 2
Civilians get no freedom to talk about politics nowhere...

but...I can still visit www.google.com here in China.




RE: It's a shame of China
By jskirwin on 6/8/2006 10:46:04 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Civilians get no freedom to talk about politics nowhere...


Really? Then Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11 doesn't exist, huh?

Just because you can't do Falun Gong exercises in Tiananmen Square doesn't mean you can't do them here in Love Park in Philadelphia.


Blocking tactics
By crystal clear on 6/8/2006 11:21:45 AM , Rating: 2
Let the US Govt block chinese products-hit them where it really hurts,then China will treat US companies with some respect.
Japanese companies get the full support & backing of their
Govt in all their international operations,sadly which the
US companies lack.
The US govts wants their (US companies) tax money in return
give nothing for the billions of dollars the IRS get every
year.
Its high Time The US Govt starts providing the support to US companies in its international operations.




RE: Blocking tactics
By jskirwin on 6/8/2006 12:43:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Its high Time The US Govt starts providing the support to US companies in its international operations


Define "American". Here's a list of companies that avoid paying taxes yet want you to believe they are American.

http://www.citizenworks.org/corp/tax/top25.php



By PandaBear on 6/8/2006 2:44:46 PM , Rating: 2
I think google was doing the minimum to comply with the censor, but Yahoo is actually trying to help jail someone. In the end, google is the lesser of the multiple evil.

If Baidu is doing fine in China, good for them, but I don't give a sh1t about it because they aren't as good as google. And no, I am not racist because I am Chinese.

People find ways to get around censorship, and eventually they will be forced to open up due to pressure from residents.




I love Google
By Josh7289 on 6/7/2006 5:46:10 PM , Rating: 1
They are teh best. Where have they ever gone wrong?

But you know, we have to say good things about the Chinese government, so when they take over, we won't be treated as badly. :P




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