Evil Google

[Bilderbooger]

Folks, you can't hold Google responsible for this. Google, like any other "for profit" company is trying to make a buck for their shareholders. Blame the Chinese government. Anyways, no matter what governments do, the Geeks always find a way around.

[Al-khiyal]

Google today found itself mired in further controversy in China after local newspapers claimed its website was operating in the country without the correct licence.
Newspapers claimed that Google, which alongside other US internet companies has bowed to China's sweeping censorship demands, was being investigated by the ministry of information.

"[Google] has not obtained the ICP (internet content provider) licence needed to operate internet content services in China," the Beijing Times reported, while China Business Times went described Google.cn as "clearly unlawful"....

Google embroiled in new Chinese row

[Al-khiyal]

A co-founder of Google has admitted the internet company compromised its principles by agreeing to censor its Chinese site.

Sergey Brin said Google agreed to the censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service.

Brin described China’s demands as a "set of rules that we weren't comfortable with" but added that Google’s competitors complied with the same demands without international criticism.

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Brin said.

Google's China-approved web service leaves out politically sensitive information that might be retrieved during searches, such as details about the Tiananmen Square suppression in June 1989.

Its agreement with China has provoked criticism from human rights groups.

"Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," Brin said.

Brin said Google was trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course.

He said virtually all the company's customers in China use the uncensored service.

Chinese-based internet users trying to access Google’s main have recently complained about problems website ranging from intermittent access failure to sustained blockage.

Google said it had received notice of the access difficulties and was investigating the cause. "We are currently looking into these reports but as yet don't know why these access problems are occurring," said Cui Jin, a Google official.

Google is just one of the websites recently affected by access problems. Internet users have reported problems accessing email accounts and online chat servers linked to servers overseas including Google's Gmail and MSN Hotmail accounts.

The Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders has said the main website, http://www.google.com/, is no longer accessible in most Chinese provinces due to censorship and criticised the "unprecedented level of internet filtering in China."

The group linked the access problems to the passing of the 17th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4.

An official from the ministry of information industry, China's internet regulator, admitted she had also had trouble accessing Google, but declined to comment further.

>>>Source<<<

[Al-khiyal]

Google says it may revisit China censorship policies

[Al-khiyal]

Google is to enter the political arena in earnest this week when it debates freedom of speech, intellectual property rights and how to connect Africa to the internet at a special UN conference.

The Silicon Valley giant will attempt to position itself as a force for change that can finance web entrepreneurs in the developing world, champion the rights of consumers against 'over-zealous' copy-right laws and use the web to protect diverse minority cultures and languages.

But Google will declare itself unrepentant over the controversial decision to censor its search engine at the behest of Beijing. At the first Internet Governance Forum in Athens, starting tomorrow, the firm will insist its presence in China does more good than harm by getting more information to more people.

That claim was firmly rejected last night by Amnesty International, which is five months into its joint campaign with The Observer, irrepressible.info, which calls for an end to online censorship and the persecution of bloggers.

The forum will be attended by delegations from more than 90 countries, including China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Tunisia and Vietnam, all of which have been criticised for curbing freedom of expression on the web. Amnesty will present a petition, signed by more than 47,000 people, demanding an end to such abuses, which in the worst cases have seen people jailed.

A session on openness will feature a panel including Richard Sambrook, the BBC's director of global news, Andrew Puddephatt, a human rights activist, and Fred Tipson, director for international development policy at Microsoft, who declined to be interviewed by The Observer. Google will not be taking part but says it intends to tackle freedom of expression topics in smaller gatherings.

Google's motto, 'Do no evil', has taken a battering in recent months. It will try to repair some of the damage during three 'workshops'. Andrew McLaughlin, head of global public policy at Google, said the first event, 'Building local access', would discuss getting internet access to more people in developing nations. At another session, 'Access to knowledge and free expression', Google will warn how developing countries fear that Western intellectual property rights work to their disadvantage. It will call for a balance to be maintained in copyright law that respects the rights of the consumer as well as the content producer.

But Google is bound to be put under pressure over its foray into China. McLaughlin said: 'Google.cn is censored but we've come up with a technique for deciding what is to be censored that is basically technical, not editorial, and very reactive. That leads us to blocking from our site the minimum that the ISP [internet service provider] level requires.

'I'm sure there are lots of people who will say it's just too distasteful, it's too gross, it's too political, you shouldn't do it. That's a totally legitimate point of view,' he said.

'We've made an empirical judgment, though, that being able to hire Chinese employees and have them be part of the Google culture and be free-thinking, freewheeling internet people ... when you add it all up, we think we're helping to advance the cause of change in China.'

Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International, did not accept the argument. 'One of the things we haven't seen from Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft is any move by them to use their collective bargaining power to negotiate with and change the terms in which they operate in countries like China,' she said.

'We do see Google with a search engine in China that gives very different results from the one for the rest for us. I think the starkest example is the picture search for Tiananmen Square. We get the man in front of the tank; in China you get a happy, smiling couple, standing in Tiananmen Square as tourists.'

Google defiant over censorship in China

[FORTUNATO]

Google can help you find a meaning to your LIFE ,

Note! if you didnT understood my accent, just google it

[Al-khiyal]

Google investigates China staff over cyber attack

January 18, 2010 -- Google is investigating whether one or more of its employees in China helped launch the cyber attack against it last month, according to reports. It is thought the line of inquiry is a routine part of its investigation into the attack, which Google says was sophisticated, originated in China and targeted intellectual property and the email accounts of human rights activists. According to Reuters news agency, citing two unidentified sources, the attack, which targeted people with access to specific parts of Google networks, might have been helped by employees in the company's offices in China. It has several hundred staff on the mainland. "We're not commenting on rumour and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation and we simply cannot comment on the details," a Google spokeswoman said.

Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software or malware used in the attack was a modification of a trojan called Hydraq. A trojan is a hidden program allowing unauthorised access to a computer. The analysts said the sophistication in the attack was in knowing whom to attack, not the malware itself. Chinese media have said that some Google China employees were denied access to internal networks following the statement, with others put on leave or transferred to different offices. Google said it would not comment on its business operations. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in a statement today that Gmail accounts used by journalists in at least two bureaux in Beijing had been hijacked and their emails forwarded to unknown email addresses. Last week several well-known Chinese advocates of human rights complained of the same problem.

A spokeswoman for Google said at the weekend that it was "business as usual" after rumours that the U.S. firm had decided to shut down Google.cn. The row over internet censorship intensified at the weekend when Yahoo's Chinese partner, Alibaba, called Yahoo "reckless" for supporting Google in its standoff with Beijing. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week, a Yahoo spokeswoman said the firm stood "aligned" against the "deeply disturbing" attacks and violation of user privacy. "Alibaba Group has communicated to Yahoo that Yahoo's statement that it is 'aligned' with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence," said John Spelich, an Alibaba spokesman. "Alibaba doesn't share this view." Yahoo owns about 40% of the Alibaba Group, which runs China's biggest online retailer, Taobao, and its largest e-commerce site, alibaba.com. Yahoo sold its stake in the Alibaba site late last year, but its stake in the group as a whole, acquired when it closed its own offices in China some years ago, remains a valuable asset. A Yahoo spokeswoman said: "Yahoo condemns all cyber attacks regardless of origin or purpose. We are committed to protecting user security and privacy and we take appropriate action in the event of any kind of breach."

Google announced last Tuesday that it was no longer willing to censor search results on its Chinese service, citing the cyber attack as well as growing controls on the internet. But spokesmen say it has not yet stopped doing so and will continue talking to the Chinese government about whether it is possible to operate an uncensored service. Chinese authorities have tried to play down the disagreement, with the ministry of commerce saying there are many ways to resolve the dispute. But officials have stressed that all foreign companies must abide by Chinese laws. It is hard to see how the two sides could reach agreement. Figures released this week showed the number of China's internet users leapt almost 30% in 2009, to 384 million.