8 ms·

A new approach to China: an update

286 points by GVRV 17y ago

chaosmachine 17y ago
"It's entirely legal ... We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision" Not much of a leg to stand on. I wouldn't want to be a Google employee in China right now.
- Spark23 17y ago
  that's true, but in my opinion it's better than constantly caving in to censorship
- potatolicious 17y ago
  My main fear is that China will use this opportunity, as the Chinese proverb goes: "kill the rooster to warn the monkey" - i.e., arrest/charge a few higher-level Google China people (Chinese citizens, they won't touch Americans). Public opinion in China re: Google is very, very much sided with the Chinese government - people in general believe Google to be bullies pushing their American-style beliefs down their throats, and the people I've spoken to almost unanimously think that it's about damned time Google left China. If a few key people are arrested/charged for conspiring to violate the law, it would be a major PR victory for the PRC domestically ("government stands up to Western bullying tactics, no safe refuge for collaborators" and the such), not to mention potentially warding off other companies trying to make the same stand. Interesting times.
  - garply 17y ago
    Where do you get this information about public opinion? My experience is that the white collar workers who use Google side with Google... and nobody else knows what Google is.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      I went to college with a large number of Chinese international students, my ex-gf was Chinese (and thus my circles are full of them), plus I am Chinese (well, Taiwanese, but shhh) Most internet users in China are well aware of who Google is - though Baidu still has a strong grip on the search industry than ol' Goog. The overwhelming opinion I got from the Chinese I know when this issue first surfaced in January was "good riddance, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out". Remember, the younger generation in China right now almost religiously, dogmatically believe in the party line. It's frightful.
      - garply 17y ago
        I live and run a business here in Beijing. The majority of my customers are young adult mainlanders (white collar, 18-35 years old) and my employees are mainlanders as well. Also my girlfriend of 6+ years. I don't find any of what you say to be true. Especially the part about religious and dogmatic belief in the party line - most of the Chinese I deal with find the gov't obnoxious and untrustworthy. Of course, that could vary with socioeconomic class, but even my relatively young workers, who are of a different social group than my customers, seem to feel that way as well (poison milk, bribery scandals, etc). In my experience, the people who are supportive of the party are usually older (40-50+). Odd that our experiences are so different, and I'm not sure where we'll be able to find objective data to resolve the differences in information.
        potatolicious 17y ago
        I think the different experiences comes down to socioeconomic status - my impression comes from Chinese expats, in particular international students. This demographic is best summed up in a single word: "over-privileged" These are the direct beneficiaries of the current regime, and I even personally knew a couple whose parents were unabashedly in the bribery business. They all tow the party line something fierce... scary, especially since they're "destined" to be the Chinese leaders of tomorrow :S I'm glad to hear that "normal" Chinese aren't nearly as bad as the ones I've met. This gives me hope. About the poison milk/bribery stuff though: even the people I know don't agree with these things, and are more than willing to admit the government's failure in preventing these things. However, if you dare bring up Western-style agricultural/industrial policies as a means to mitigate this sort of thing, you are in for some major hostility. This may be unique to the demographic I talk to, but basically only they are allowed to criticize the Chinese government - if you represent some kind of western ideology you're frowned upon.
  - zellux 17y ago
    I'm just wondering where you get this public opinion, which is quite different from what I heard. And I'm in Shanghai, China.
    - potatolicious 17y ago
      See my other post below, but to add: A lot of what I'm basing this observation on is poking around in Xiaonei (Chinese Facebook knockoff), the chatter in there is alarmingly (and almost militaristic) anti-west. This may be because the part of the social graph I was looking at was mostly upper-class Chinese (being that my main "in" with the Chinese is international students/expats, who are much better off that most). It is likely (in fact, most probably) that the working class Chinese would have entirely different views.
      - chrischen 17y ago
        The wealthier off probably are more invested in their national identity.
      - c1sc0 17y ago
        Very interesting that you mention militaristic. Been observing similar attitudes and frankly it scares me.
        lhuang 17y ago
        Just nationalism.... the tea baggers are just as vitriolic...
        potatolicious 17y ago
        Not sure why you got downvoted - I would say the comparison is apt. I've seen some disturbing things on Xiaonei, things like a map of the USA with a gigantic PRC flag sticking out of it, and other bits of aggressive nationalistic posturing.
    - Frazzydee 17y ago
- liuliu 17y ago
  Actually, it is not legal in terms of China law. The law requires any website, in mainland China or not, need to implement a process called beian (a licensing procedure and that is the reason why you can see ICP XXXXXX on any Chinese target website). It is a strong legal justification that gives local police the authority to block any foreign website at will. For a commercial website, the beian process will cost about $1000 dollars (you have to hire agency which has close connection to the Chinese government to do this) and any foreign website in principal cannot implement this process (it requires or in tradition only limited to the company that significant share (more than 50%) was hold by Chinese capital entities or individuals). Google.cn, prior to the announcement held a ICP licence from its local partner. Kaifu Lee did a lot work in the back scene that made the whole ICP transaction procedure OK to China government. For your curiosity, the local Chinese companies that were listed on NASDAQ all go with a mode in which the company that registered in China will hold the license and sign a contract with the offshore company that actually gets listed to guarantee the profit will go to the offshore company in order to mitigate the restrictions.
  - bnomis 17y ago
    Beian http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/ http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/ only applies to servers inside of China. China law can't extend outside its borders. It is free to apply for a beian. CNNIC passed a rule at the end of last year that essentially means only companies registered in China can hold .cn domains http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2009/12/12/5750.htm http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2009/12/12/5750.htm You can host whatever TLD site you want in China (.com etc.) You just need to register it and get an ICP (beian). It's a form of publishing and all publishing is controlled. So why would you host in side of China? Speed. Traversing the GFW slows everything down.
    - liuliu 17y ago
      Based on the Internet Information Services Management Approach (http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2000/09/25/0652.htm http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2000/09/25/0652.htm), anyone who provide Internet information services in mainland China needs to beian (be careful about the word they use here. As long as you provide service to mainland China user, you have to). For non-commercial website, it is free. For commercial website, it is free for you to apply, but in practice, you have to hire an agency to get the licence. For those who are not Chinese native speakers, I use Google translate to give you the keywords: "Second, in the PRC engaged in Internet information service activities, must comply with these measures. "The term Internet information services, refer to Internet users through the Internet to provide information services activities."
lotharbot 17y ago
IMO, the most valuable thing to come out of all of this is the China apps status dashboard: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en tells us what China is currently allowing, blocking, or partially blocking.
- eob 17y ago
  Seriously. It would be nice to see a widget like this that anyone could throw up on their site or blog. Problem would be getting the update -- you'd have to have a server in China pinging all the participating sites, I suppose. This could be a very nice way for the web to passively protest China's censorship: put a strip at the top of your blog that displays whether or not your blog is readable in China at the moment. Even if the Chinese couldn't see it, plenty of people outside of China would, raising awareness of the problem and putting pressure on China.
  - seymour 17y ago
    Could someone please explain to me the frequency of the sentence, "Seriously."? An in joke? I don't get it...
    - paulbaumgart 17y ago
      http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Seriously&defid=368196 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Seriously&#38...
    - eob 17y ago
      I never stopped to think this was a regional colloquialism, but I suppose it is.. I used it above to mean "I agree"
    - mclin 17y ago
      When you see that, mentally swap it with 'Fo shizzle', then you should be ok.
    - queensnake 17y ago
houseabsolute 17y ago
In some ways I can't believe they actually did it.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
orangecat 17y ago
That's actually brilliant. They're both complying with the letter of the law and forcing the Chinese government to actively shut them down. I hope all their non-Chinese employees have exited the country...
ErrantX 17y ago
For all the rights and wrongs of such a decision; kudos to them for going through with their threat.
- dawgyDoo 17y ago
  I thought their threat was to leave. They haven't exactly left. It's more like they've thrown more doodoo into fan.
jsm386 17y ago
Pretty frightening that they need to reiterate this (they mentioned this in the original announcement): Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.
- analyst74 17y ago
  If the Chinese government is going to hold some google employees responsible (for whatever), do you think reiterating that statement is going do anything? Don't be partisan.
  - Nwallins 17y ago
    > Don't be partisan. In what sense?
  - jrockway 17y ago
    China is not stupid. They already look bad, and retaliating by ruining a few Google employee's lives is not going to make them look better. When China starts alienating the western companies, they are simply going to leave, leaving China with nothing. That would not be good for them, so I think they will try and avoid it.
    - c23gooey 17y ago
      The Chinese Government simply does not care what others think of it - especially the west. All you need to do is look at the case of Stern Hu and Rio Tinto to find out how much the Chinese Government cares about its reputation amongst western corporations.
      - netcan 17y ago
        I don't think you're right. They seem to have a policy of strong censorship, but not at any cost. I think this applies to related are as well. Controlling the costs of their censorship is important to them. So, for example I wouldn't be surprised if one of the things they asked themselves was 'If we block Google completely, are there any services that we can't live without?'
jbellis 17y ago
The last paragraph says a lot between the lines. "Please don't put our employees in jail."
- kylec 17y ago
  They really should offer to relocate them to the US
  - barrkel 17y ago
    Unless Google has closer ties to the government than I was aware of, they don't necessarily have that power.
    - TallGuyShort 17y ago
      It's relatively easy for a company to relocate employees, as long as it has a reasonable need for specifically those people. If it wants skilled employees with a native-level knowledge of the language and culture, it wouldn't be hard to relocate them. Having said that, it's entirely possible that those employees don't want to be relocated. If my company's relations soured in my country, I'd rather quit and find a new job then leave for the company.
      - barrkel 17y ago
        Re relocating to the US, specifically: I've been through the H-1B visa process - I have the visa, but I never actually jumped. Quite apart from times when it's oversubscribed and becomes a lottery, there are any number of small hurdles you could fail on. But if it's relocation to anywhere not-China, then yes, that ought not to be too difficult.
        netcan 17y ago
        That would have interesting implications. If Google relocated a large number of employees someplace with a pleasant immigration process, I mean.
SlyShy 17y ago
And all this time analysts were saying Google would stand down from its principles on this matter. I quite like this page: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en as well as the general tenor of these actions.
garply 17y ago
Some things I used to be able to search for on google.cn, but are now filtered by my ISP (via connection reset): http://www.google.com.hk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=六四 http://www.google.com.hk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8... (6/4) http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=天安门+1989 http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q... (Tian'anmen 1989) I'm sure a native Chinese can give a better list. Superficially at least, it looks like ISP level censorship has gotten worse.
- tomerico 17y ago
  Isn't it a little scary to search this stuff in China?
  - garply 17y ago
    A little I guess, but I'm an American, so I feel somewhat safer. Also, everything I know about my adopted homeland tells me that you only really get in trouble if you're agitating vocally for serious political change (something I don't really care about).
  - ugh 17y ago
    Probably not. China is not North Korea, I would guess nobody really cares what you are searching for. (Conceptually it’s probably not that much different from children watching M-rated movies. The government in the US doesn’t care, even if they know children are watching that stuff. Police won’t come busting through your door. They are only interested in making it impossible for children to buy that stuff. The problem in China is of course that much more stuff is blocked and not just for children.)
    - wqfeng 17y ago
      Definitely not. It's just a connection reset. People won't be put in jail because they have searched these.
- ntoshev 17y ago
  What about Google Cache?
euroclydon 17y ago
Could this be the first big salvo in a protectionist effort against Chinese imports? It certainly provides some political cover for the Treasury to declare CN a currency manipulator in the next couple of weeks. Are there any projections out there of how tariffs would affect technology the markets?
- nzmsv 17y ago
  Sadly, you are being downvoted, though I think questioning things is "the hacker way". It is one thing to just yell "freedom" and quite another to actually analyze things. Personally, the speed with which the US government issued a statement last time this story surfaced really surprised me, and makes one wonder how close the relationship between big corporations and the government really is.
  - krakensden 17y ago
    They don't need a close official relationship- Google is a flagship American corporation, its decisions matter to the USFG.
- mbreese 17y ago
  The two things are completely unrelated. How does Google ceasing to self-censor results in mainland China have anything to do with the Treasury's response to Chinese currency policy? It would be a mistake to conflate the two.
  - nkassis 17y ago
    I have a similar feeling to the grand parent, frankly, there has been a lot of anti-china stuff appearing from the US lately. I will admit that I support most of the stuff but I still find it odd that multiple companies, the gov and others are all mounting an attack on China right now. It seems a little too coincidental. /conspiracy
  - Super_Jambo 17y ago
    Not entirely unrelated, part of Googles reason for leaving is that China has been distorting the market in favor of their Chinese competition - protectionism. So getting more publicity for these acts provides political cover should the US carry out similar acts - they can claim it's quid pro quo.
zellux 17y ago
http://www.google.cn http://www.google.cn now redirects to http://www.google.com.hk/ http://www.google.com.hk/, and there is a line of message saying 欢迎您来到谷歌搜索在中国的新家, which means "Welcome to the new home for Google Search in China".
neilk 17y ago
I hope they gave Google.cn employees a chance to resign. Ideally, a month or two ago.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  That would put the ones who didn't resign in even hotter water; it would be seen as, 'you had a chance to get out and you chose to stay? That's even worse.'
  - neilk 17y ago
    You may be right -- I have heard through some informal contacts that the decision to pull out of China was taken at the highest levels, and in secret. Apparently this is a deliberate strategy when dealing with totalitarian governments -- even if they have people on the ground, they have to keep them in the dark about big decisions.
- algorias 17y ago
  Most employees can resign at any time they wish. Not sure why Google would need to explicitly "give them a chance". Am I missing something obvious?
  - stevenbedrick 17y ago
    Maybe he meant "resign with some sort of stock-option buyout"?
  - neilk 17y ago
    Because when you are about to publicly challenge a totalitarian government, it might be a good idea to tell the staff in advance. For Google, the big question about establishing operations in China was always the hostage scenario. If they can jail your people, can you really be brave about censorship? To their credit Google isn't backing down, but the risks are real and they ought to reiterate this to their staff beforehand.
TorKlingberg 17y ago
It is possible the Chinese government will only partially block google.com.hk. This it how it has often worked with Wikipedia. You can browse the site, but as soon as any forbidden phrase is passed over the TCP connection it is cut. Then all access to the site from your IP is blocked for a while. This makes the service very intermittent, and makes it difficult for users to distinguish between censorship and overloaded servers. There is also the question of what will happen to the google.cn domain, as all websites in China are required to have an ICP license from a government agency.
garply 17y ago
Hey Googlers on HN, I live in China and access Gmail from my local connection. Where is my Gmail data located?
- EricBurnett 17y ago
  Disclaimer: this is not an official answer from Google, and while I have worked there I do not at present. There are data centers around the world, however Google only stores sensitive data in locations where it can guarantee security and privacy[1]. Quoting from an official blog post from 2006, "Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China." What this means is that your data could be stored in a number of countries, which will include a copy in the U.S. and not include a copy in China. [1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in-china.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in...
- wisty 17y ago
  It hopefully won't matter. I'm on the mainland, and my gmail, igoogle (now re-directed to google.hk), and google translate are up. News and search have been surgically removed. edit: search is up? down? wtf? Whatever, I can use yahoo.
startingup 17y ago
I have some colleagues and good friends in Beijing, most of them coming from various provinces to Beijing for their jobs - they are not high up in the ladder socio-economically. The impression I get is that they love China (to the extent of choosing not to go abroad to live and work), but resent the party's overbearing ways. They are not going to go out and protest, but that doesn't mean they like their government much either. They tell me banned publications are fairly widely available, if you know how to find them, and many of them are fairly knowledgeable about stuff the party doesn't want them to know about.
- mjhnghfh 17y ago
  Funnily enough I have colleagues in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc who feel exactly the same way.
queensnake 17y ago
I haven't seen anyone mention, how long it'll take for China to ban Google from Hong Kong. I understand it runs the place already (indirectly maybe), sure they'll have to change laws, but I haven't gotten the impression that that's an obstacle.
- quant18 17y ago
  sure they'll have to change laws, but I haven't gotten the impression that that's an obstacle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law_Article_23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law_Article_23 Last time China tried to change a law here, 500,000 people marched through the central business district, the secretaries for security and finance resigned, and the law never got passed. So no.
jboydyhacker 17y ago
Whatever this leads Google needs to stay in China even if they ban it in Hong Kong. Supposedly one of the reasons Google's stand has been so "principled" is because of Sergey Brin's early years in the Soviet Union. That begs the question though, if the Soviet Union had Google and the internet would it have collapsed sooner or would it have taken longer?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
DEinspanjer 17y ago
I think it is funny that I am visiting China right now and I cannot see the article because googleblog.blogspot.com is blocked. I'll have to bookmark it to be read when I get back home.
- vorg 17y ago
  I found a copy of the text on: http://en.mye.ir/a-new-approach-to-china-an-update/ http://en.mye.ir/a-new-approach-to-china-an-update/ available from within China.
mattjung 17y ago
Respect to Google! But I'm afraid the servers in Hong Kong will be blocked very soon.

286 points by GVRV 17y ago

"It's entirely legal ... We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision" Not much of a leg to stand on. I wouldn't want to be a Google employee in China right now.

Spark23 17y ago
that's true, but in my opinion it's better than constantly caving in to censorship
potatolicious 17y ago
My main fear is that China will use this opportunity, as the Chinese proverb goes: "kill the rooster to warn the monkey" - i.e., arrest/charge a few higher-level Google China people (Chinese citizens, they won't touch Americans). Public opinion in China re: Google is very, very much sided with the Chinese government - people in general believe Google to be bullies pushing their American-style beliefs down their throats, and the people I've spoken to almost unanimously think that it's about damned time Google left China. If a few key people are arrested/charged for conspiring to violate the law, it would be a major PR victory for the PRC domestically ("government stands up to Western bullying tactics, no safe refuge for collaborators" and the such), not to mention potentially warding off other companies trying to make the same stand. Interesting times.
- garply 17y ago
  Where do you get this information about public opinion? My experience is that the white collar workers who use Google side with Google... and nobody else knows what Google is.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    I went to college with a large number of Chinese international students, my ex-gf was Chinese (and thus my circles are full of them), plus I am Chinese (well, Taiwanese, but shhh) Most internet users in China are well aware of who Google is - though Baidu still has a strong grip on the search industry than ol' Goog. The overwhelming opinion I got from the Chinese I know when this issue first surfaced in January was "good riddance, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out". Remember, the younger generation in China right now almost religiously, dogmatically believe in the party line. It's frightful.
    - garply 17y ago
      I live and run a business here in Beijing. The majority of my customers are young adult mainlanders (white collar, 18-35 years old) and my employees are mainlanders as well. Also my girlfriend of 6+ years. I don't find any of what you say to be true. Especially the part about religious and dogmatic belief in the party line - most of the Chinese I deal with find the gov't obnoxious and untrustworthy. Of course, that could vary with socioeconomic class, but even my relatively young workers, who are of a different social group than my customers, seem to feel that way as well (poison milk, bribery scandals, etc). In my experience, the people who are supportive of the party are usually older (40-50+). Odd that our experiences are so different, and I'm not sure where we'll be able to find objective data to resolve the differences in information.
      - potatolicious 17y ago
        I think the different experiences comes down to socioeconomic status - my impression comes from Chinese expats, in particular international students. This demographic is best summed up in a single word: "over-privileged" These are the direct beneficiaries of the current regime, and I even personally knew a couple whose parents were unabashedly in the bribery business. They all tow the party line something fierce... scary, especially since they're "destined" to be the Chinese leaders of tomorrow :S I'm glad to hear that "normal" Chinese aren't nearly as bad as the ones I've met. This gives me hope. About the poison milk/bribery stuff though: even the people I know don't agree with these things, and are more than willing to admit the government's failure in preventing these things. However, if you dare bring up Western-style agricultural/industrial policies as a means to mitigate this sort of thing, you are in for some major hostility. This may be unique to the demographic I talk to, but basically only they are allowed to criticize the Chinese government - if you represent some kind of western ideology you're frowned upon.
- zellux 17y ago
  I'm just wondering where you get this public opinion, which is quite different from what I heard. And I'm in Shanghai, China.
  - potatolicious 17y ago
    See my other post below, but to add: A lot of what I'm basing this observation on is poking around in Xiaonei (Chinese Facebook knockoff), the chatter in there is alarmingly (and almost militaristic) anti-west. This may be because the part of the social graph I was looking at was mostly upper-class Chinese (being that my main "in" with the Chinese is international students/expats, who are much better off that most). It is likely (in fact, most probably) that the working class Chinese would have entirely different views.
    - chrischen 17y ago
      The wealthier off probably are more invested in their national identity.
    - c1sc0 17y ago
      Very interesting that you mention militaristic. Been observing similar attitudes and frankly it scares me.
      - lhuang 17y ago
        Just nationalism.... the tea baggers are just as vitriolic...
        potatolicious 17y ago
        Not sure why you got downvoted - I would say the comparison is apt. I've seen some disturbing things on Xiaonei, things like a map of the USA with a gigantic PRC flag sticking out of it, and other bits of aggressive nationalistic posturing.
  - Frazzydee 17y ago
liuliu 17y ago
Actually, it is not legal in terms of China law. The law requires any website, in mainland China or not, need to implement a process called beian (a licensing procedure and that is the reason why you can see ICP XXXXXX on any Chinese target website). It is a strong legal justification that gives local police the authority to block any foreign website at will. For a commercial website, the beian process will cost about $1000 dollars (you have to hire agency which has close connection to the Chinese government to do this) and any foreign website in principal cannot implement this process (it requires or in tradition only limited to the company that significant share (more than 50%) was hold by Chinese capital entities or individuals). Google.cn, prior to the announcement held a ICP licence from its local partner. Kaifu Lee did a lot work in the back scene that made the whole ICP transaction procedure OK to China government. For your curiosity, the local Chinese companies that were listed on NASDAQ all go with a mode in which the company that registered in China will hold the license and sign a contract with the offshore company that actually gets listed to guarantee the profit will go to the offshore company in order to mitigate the restrictions.
- bnomis 17y ago
  Beian http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/ http://www.miibeian.gov.cn/ only applies to servers inside of China. China law can't extend outside its borders. It is free to apply for a beian. CNNIC passed a rule at the end of last year that essentially means only companies registered in China can hold .cn domains http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2009/12/12/5750.htm http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2009/12/12/5750.htm You can host whatever TLD site you want in China (.com etc.) You just need to register it and get an ICP (beian). It's a form of publishing and all publishing is controlled. So why would you host in side of China? Speed. Traversing the GFW slows everything down.
  - liuliu 17y ago
    Based on the Internet Information Services Management Approach (http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2000/09/25/0652.htm http://www.cnnic.net.cn/html/Dir/2000/09/25/0652.htm), anyone who provide Internet information services in mainland China needs to beian (be careful about the word they use here. As long as you provide service to mainland China user, you have to). For non-commercial website, it is free. For commercial website, it is free for you to apply, but in practice, you have to hire an agency to get the licence. For those who are not Chinese native speakers, I use Google translate to give you the keywords: "Second, in the PRC engaged in Internet information service activities, must comply with these measures. "The term Internet information services, refer to Internet users through the Internet to provide information services activities."

lotharbot 17y ago

IMO, the most valuable thing to come out of all of this is the China apps status dashboard: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en tells us what China is currently allowing, blocking, or partially blocking.

eob 17y ago
Seriously. It would be nice to see a widget like this that anyone could throw up on their site or blog. Problem would be getting the update -- you'd have to have a server in China pinging all the participating sites, I suppose. This could be a very nice way for the web to passively protest China's censorship: put a strip at the top of your blog that displays whether or not your blog is readable in China at the moment. Even if the Chinese couldn't see it, plenty of people outside of China would, raising awareness of the problem and putting pressure on China.
- seymour 17y ago
  Could someone please explain to me the frequency of the sentence, "Seriously."? An in joke? I don't get it...
  - paulbaumgart 17y ago
    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Seriously&defid=368196 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Seriously&#38...
  - eob 17y ago
    I never stopped to think this was a regional colloquialism, but I suppose it is.. I used it above to mean "I agree"
  - mclin 17y ago
    When you see that, mentally swap it with 'Fo shizzle', then you should be ok.
  - queensnake 17y ago

houseabsolute 17y ago

In some ways I can't believe they actually did it.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

orangecat 17y ago

That's actually brilliant. They're both complying with the letter of the law and forcing the Chinese government to actively shut them down. I hope all their non-Chinese employees have exited the country...

ErrantX 17y ago

For all the rights and wrongs of such a decision; kudos to them for going through with their threat.

dawgyDoo 17y ago
I thought their threat was to leave. They haven't exactly left. It's more like they've thrown more doodoo into fan.

jsm386 17y ago

Pretty frightening that they need to reiterate this (they mentioned this in the original announcement): Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

analyst74 17y ago
If the Chinese government is going to hold some google employees responsible (for whatever), do you think reiterating that statement is going do anything? Don't be partisan.
- Nwallins 17y ago
  > Don't be partisan. In what sense?
- jrockway 17y ago
  China is not stupid. They already look bad, and retaliating by ruining a few Google employee's lives is not going to make them look better. When China starts alienating the western companies, they are simply going to leave, leaving China with nothing. That would not be good for them, so I think they will try and avoid it.
  - c23gooey 17y ago
    The Chinese Government simply does not care what others think of it - especially the west. All you need to do is look at the case of Stern Hu and Rio Tinto to find out how much the Chinese Government cares about its reputation amongst western corporations.
    - netcan 17y ago
      I don't think you're right. They seem to have a policy of strong censorship, but not at any cost. I think this applies to related are as well. Controlling the costs of their censorship is important to them. So, for example I wouldn't be surprised if one of the things they asked themselves was 'If we block Google completely, are there any services that we can't live without?'

jbellis 17y ago

The last paragraph says a lot between the lines. "Please don't put our employees in jail."

kylec 17y ago
They really should offer to relocate them to the US
- barrkel 17y ago
  Unless Google has closer ties to the government than I was aware of, they don't necessarily have that power.
  - TallGuyShort 17y ago
    It's relatively easy for a company to relocate employees, as long as it has a reasonable need for specifically those people. If it wants skilled employees with a native-level knowledge of the language and culture, it wouldn't be hard to relocate them. Having said that, it's entirely possible that those employees don't want to be relocated. If my company's relations soured in my country, I'd rather quit and find a new job then leave for the company.
    - barrkel 17y ago
      Re relocating to the US, specifically: I've been through the H-1B visa process - I have the visa, but I never actually jumped. Quite apart from times when it's oversubscribed and becomes a lottery, there are any number of small hurdles you could fail on. But if it's relocation to anywhere not-China, then yes, that ought not to be too difficult.
      - netcan 17y ago
        That would have interesting implications. If Google relocated a large number of employees someplace with a pleasant immigration process, I mean.

SlyShy 17y ago

And all this time analysts were saying Google would stand down from its principles on this matter. I quite like this page: http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en as well as the general tenor of these actions.

garply 17y ago

Some things I used to be able to search for on google.cn, but are now filtered by my ISP (via connection reset): http://www.google.com.hk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=六四 http://www.google.com.hk/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8... (6/4) http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q=天安门+1989 http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-CN&source=hp&q... (Tian'anmen 1989) I'm sure a native Chinese can give a better list. Superficially at least, it looks like ISP level censorship has gotten worse.

tomerico 17y ago
Isn't it a little scary to search this stuff in China?
- garply 17y ago
  A little I guess, but I'm an American, so I feel somewhat safer. Also, everything I know about my adopted homeland tells me that you only really get in trouble if you're agitating vocally for serious political change (something I don't really care about).
- ugh 17y ago
  Probably not. China is not North Korea, I would guess nobody really cares what you are searching for. (Conceptually it’s probably not that much different from children watching M-rated movies. The government in the US doesn’t care, even if they know children are watching that stuff. Police won’t come busting through your door. They are only interested in making it impossible for children to buy that stuff. The problem in China is of course that much more stuff is blocked and not just for children.)
  - wqfeng 17y ago
    Definitely not. It's just a connection reset. People won't be put in jail because they have searched these.
ntoshev 17y ago
What about Google Cache?

euroclydon 17y ago

Could this be the first big salvo in a protectionist effort against Chinese imports? It certainly provides some political cover for the Treasury to declare CN a currency manipulator in the next couple of weeks. Are there any projections out there of how tariffs would affect technology the markets?

nzmsv 17y ago
Sadly, you are being downvoted, though I think questioning things is "the hacker way". It is one thing to just yell "freedom" and quite another to actually analyze things. Personally, the speed with which the US government issued a statement last time this story surfaced really surprised me, and makes one wonder how close the relationship between big corporations and the government really is.
- krakensden 17y ago
  They don't need a close official relationship- Google is a flagship American corporation, its decisions matter to the USFG.
mbreese 17y ago
The two things are completely unrelated. How does Google ceasing to self-censor results in mainland China have anything to do with the Treasury's response to Chinese currency policy? It would be a mistake to conflate the two.
- nkassis 17y ago
  I have a similar feeling to the grand parent, frankly, there has been a lot of anti-china stuff appearing from the US lately. I will admit that I support most of the stuff but I still find it odd that multiple companies, the gov and others are all mounting an attack on China right now. It seems a little too coincidental. /conspiracy
- Super_Jambo 17y ago
  Not entirely unrelated, part of Googles reason for leaving is that China has been distorting the market in favor of their Chinese competition - protectionism. So getting more publicity for these acts provides political cover should the US carry out similar acts - they can claim it's quid pro quo.

zellux 17y ago

http://www.google.cn http://www.google.cn now redirects to http://www.google.com.hk/ http://www.google.com.hk/, and there is a line of message saying 欢迎您来到谷歌搜索在中国的新家, which means "Welcome to the new home for Google Search in China".

neilk 17y ago

I hope they gave Google.cn employees a chance to resign. Ideally, a month or two ago.

sliverstorm 17y ago
That would put the ones who didn't resign in even hotter water; it would be seen as, 'you had a chance to get out and you chose to stay? That's even worse.'
- neilk 17y ago
  You may be right -- I have heard through some informal contacts that the decision to pull out of China was taken at the highest levels, and in secret. Apparently this is a deliberate strategy when dealing with totalitarian governments -- even if they have people on the ground, they have to keep them in the dark about big decisions.
algorias 17y ago
Most employees can resign at any time they wish. Not sure why Google would need to explicitly "give them a chance". Am I missing something obvious?
- stevenbedrick 17y ago
  Maybe he meant "resign with some sort of stock-option buyout"?
- neilk 17y ago
  Because when you are about to publicly challenge a totalitarian government, it might be a good idea to tell the staff in advance. For Google, the big question about establishing operations in China was always the hostage scenario. If they can jail your people, can you really be brave about censorship? To their credit Google isn't backing down, but the risks are real and they ought to reiterate this to their staff beforehand.

TorKlingberg 17y ago

It is possible the Chinese government will only partially block google.com.hk. This it how it has often worked with Wikipedia. You can browse the site, but as soon as any forbidden phrase is passed over the TCP connection it is cut. Then all access to the site from your IP is blocked for a while. This makes the service very intermittent, and makes it difficult for users to distinguish between censorship and overloaded servers. There is also the question of what will happen to the google.cn domain, as all websites in China are required to have an ICP license from a government agency.

garply 17y ago

Hey Googlers on HN, I live in China and access Gmail from my local connection. Where is my Gmail data located?

EricBurnett 17y ago
Disclaimer: this is not an official answer from Google, and while I have worked there I do not at present. There are data centers around the world, however Google only stores sensitive data in locations where it can guarantee security and privacy[1]. Quoting from an official blog post from 2006, "Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China." What this means is that your data could be stored in a number of countries, which will include a copy in the U.S. and not include a copy in China. [1] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in-china.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in...
wisty 17y ago
It hopefully won't matter. I'm on the mainland, and my gmail, igoogle (now re-directed to google.hk), and google translate are up. News and search have been surgically removed. edit: search is up? down? wtf? Whatever, I can use yahoo.

startingup 17y ago

I have some colleagues and good friends in Beijing, most of them coming from various provinces to Beijing for their jobs - they are not high up in the ladder socio-economically. The impression I get is that they love China (to the extent of choosing not to go abroad to live and work), but resent the party's overbearing ways. They are not going to go out and protest, but that doesn't mean they like their government much either. They tell me banned publications are fairly widely available, if you know how to find them, and many of them are fairly knowledgeable about stuff the party doesn't want them to know about.

mjhnghfh 17y ago
Funnily enough I have colleagues in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc who feel exactly the same way.

queensnake 17y ago

I haven't seen anyone mention, how long it'll take for China to ban Google from Hong Kong. I understand it runs the place already (indirectly maybe), sure they'll have to change laws, but I haven't gotten the impression that that's an obstacle.

quant18 17y ago
sure they'll have to change laws, but I haven't gotten the impression that that's an obstacle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law_Article_23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Basic_Law_Article_23 Last time China tried to change a law here, 500,000 people marched through the central business district, the secretaries for security and finance resigned, and the law never got passed. So no.

jboydyhacker 17y ago

Whatever this leads Google needs to stay in China even if they ban it in Hong Kong. Supposedly one of the reasons Google's stand has been so "principled" is because of Sergey Brin's early years in the Soviet Union. That begs the question though, if the Soviet Union had Google and the internet would it have collapsed sooner or would it have taken longer?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

DEinspanjer 17y ago

I think it is funny that I am visiting China right now and I cannot see the article because googleblog.blogspot.com is blocked. I'll have to bookmark it to be read when I get back home.

vorg 17y ago
I found a copy of the text on: http://en.mye.ir/a-new-approach-to-china-an-update/ http://en.mye.ir/a-new-approach-to-china-an-update/ available from within China.

mattjung 17y ago

Respect to Google! But I'm afraid the servers in Hong Kong will be blocked very soon.