How Google.cn Censorship Works

For Google.cn to operate in China, Google has to comply with government laws and censor certain search results from showing up to search engine users. Besides business reasons, censorship may be the biggest “value” clash for Google to exit China.

How Google Censorship Works

Google’s search algorithm is able to exclude web materials from appearing to users within search results. Google censors organic search results:

  • For quality reasons – Google removes sites that “spam” the search engine.
  • To comply with different local government laws – Google applies different levels of censorship to Google’s search engines in different countries.

Google’s censorship algorithm consists of global censorship and local censorship. Google often keeps the “removed” web material in the search engine’s index and uses the post-processing to remove web materials from search results showing to users.

What Search Results Are Being Censored on Google.cn?

In 2006, Blogoscoped researched and compiled a list of censored search terms in China:

Impact on Google’s China Exit

Despite all the contributions that Google has made to Chinese Internet users, Google is to exit China and shut down Chinese search engine Google.cn.

  • Google’s China Internet license may expire this month, however, the exit can possibly slow down Chinese Internet’s technology development.
  • Chinese government demands Google to obey censorship laws no matter what Google’s decisions will be, however, Google says it’s still censoring China’s web site.
  • Google’s Chinese ad partners urge the search engine to disclose future plans and set up compensations.
  • Google’s China exit will hinder other Internet companies/technologies from entering the Chinese market and reaching Internet users in China – For example, Twitter, Google Buzz’s microblogging rival, may think twice before taking its business to China.
  • Google’s exit may open up opportunities for Microsoft in China.

Comments

One Response to “How Google.cn Censorship Works”

  1. Fabian Ahmadi on March 21st, 2010 8:25 pm

    Google is exiting China, the decision seems to be made. One way to look at this is to factor in the wider political climate in which this decision was conceived: I’m thinking about the ongoing dispute between the US and China over exchange rates, for example and demands from Congress to penalize Chinese imports.

    Public sentiment regarding China might prompt other businesses exiting the Chinese market as well. Google’s exit, in a way, is a response to public sentiment in the US and Europe and further contributes to it.

    We might look back at this as the beginning of a new era from a geopolitical point of view. After the collapse of the Communism in Eastern Europe, and the “end” of the East-West conflict we entered into a 20 year long phase that reconfigured the global power balance. I’m not gloomy or pessimistic… but this could be the beginning of a new global divide between the West and China (with Russia doing who-knows-what). In any case, I’m no expert on politics, I’m just expressing amateur thoughts…

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