20100112/谷歌考虑关闭中国运营及网站(附英文)

倍可亲网/北京时间1月13日早间消息,谷歌在其官方博客上宣布,公司不愿再对其中国版搜索引擎Google.cn的搜索结果进行审查,并承认这项决定可能意味着Google.cn将不得不关闭,可能连谷歌驻中国的办事处也会关闭。

中国异议人士邮箱遭黑客 Google因此考虑退出中国

多维新闻/Google12日表示,有证据显示,一个针对中国异议人士的GMAIL电子邮件帐号的网络攻击可能是源于中国,如果属实Google将可能考虑退出中国市场。

Google目前正与中国官方交涉,提出取消google.cn (符合中国对于新闻内容检查制度而制定的网站服务)并恢复google.com的服务,如果交涉失败,将考虑退出中国市场。

Google发言人表示,网络袭击是在12月发现的,但是调查目前显示,攻击并不成功。目前只有两个Gmail帐户似乎已被访问,而这一活动仅限于帐户信息,如日期及创建帐号的信息,但应未涉及电子邮件内容。至少有20多家大公司也同样受到此类攻击。这些公司所在行业包括金融、科技、媒体、化工等。

Google称,中国是少数被认为具有较强网络攻击力的国家之一,不过美国官员尚未公开指责中国,其原因是很难确定攻击背后发起者。不过,针对中国人权活动者的攻击已在增长,中国政府及其大量代理已成怀疑对象。

Google13日在其官方博客上宣布,考虑关闭中国运营及网站Google.cn。Google高级副总裁、公司发展和首席法律官David Drummond在谷歌官方博客上发表文章“A new approach to China”,谈及Google目前对于中国运营的看法及考虑。

Google to stop censoring in China after cyber attacks

Google on Tuesday said it will stop censoring search results in China after it detected “highly sophisticated and targeted” attacks on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The Internet giant didn’t go so far as to accuse the Chinese government, but that seemed to be the allusion. Announcing it will stop cooperating with China over censorship, Google said it acknowledges that it may have to pull out of the world’s most populous country.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered – combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web – have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” the company said on the Official Google Blog. “We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Google said the e-mail accounts dozens of activists of human rights in China, located not just in China but also in the U.S. and Europe, were found to be accessed by third parties. The December investigation found that the accounts were not breached, but accessed via phishing scams or malware.

Google was not the only company targeted – at least 20 more companies were attacked, Google said. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has contacted those businesses and U.S. authorities.

The surprise move comes after months – perhaps years – of escalating concern over censorship in China. Microsoft recently got entangled in controversy when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called for the boycott of its Bing search engine, after it was found to return pro-Communist photos in its image search.

Google, which is by far the search leader in the U.S. and Europe, claims about 30 percent of the market in China. Chinese search engine Baidu is the dominant player – Bing, for its part, trails far behind.

“We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results,” Google said Tuesday. “At the time we made clear that ‘we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.'”

It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in response. Surely, there will be calls for Bing to follow suit and stop censoring Chinese search results. But Microsoft did recently peg China as its top search priority.

Leave a Comment