Google will hold more talks with Chinese authorities “in the coming days,” it said in an e-mailed statement today.
The operator of the world’s most-popular search engine last week said it plans to operate an unfiltered search-engine service in China -- a move that may lead to the company closing down its offices in the country -- pending talks with the government. The Mountain View, California-based Internet company said its computer system faced a series of “highly sophisticated” attacks that originated in China.
“The key swing factor is the negotiation between Google and the Chinese government,” Credit Suisse Group AG analysts Wallace Cheung and Sharon Jing wrote in a report today. “Next week will be crucial for resolution of the issue,” said the analysts.
Google’s China operations may be “officially terminated” in February, leading the government to block the company’s main site, Cheung and Jing added.
“Post Google’s China shut down, China government is likely to frequently block the Google.com Web site,” they wrote, without saying who gave them the information.
The Chinese service started by Google in 2006 limits search results to comply with the Chinese government’s rules to restrict access to information censors deem inappropriate.
Google said in today’s statement that its Google.cn Chinese-language site is still operating in compliance with local regulations. Nonetheless, searches for information about the 1989 crackdown on protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square have surged.
Queries for “Truth of Tiananmen” grew at the second- fastest pace of any search term on Google.cn as of 9 a.m. local time on Monday, according to data available on the company’s mainland Chinese Web site. China strictly controls information on the crackdown.
Terms related to the Tiananmen Square protests weren’t among Google.cn’s most-searched for in November and not one of the top 10 searches for 2009, according to data available on the Web site.
“The sudden surge in searches for Tiananmen related topics shows users have been trying to work out whether Google has now dropped censorship altogether,” said Isaac Mao, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
“Subjects like Tiananmen are good acid-tests.”
Bloomberg
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