Google Says May Pull Out of China After Web Attacks

[dandroid]

via cnbc..

Google is considering shutting down its China operations and website after hackers in China coordinated a "highly sophisticated" cyber-attack on the Internet search giant in December and targeted at least a score of other major corporations, it said on Tuesday.

Google [GOOG 590.48 -10.63 (-1.77%) ] said the hackers had tried to access the Gmail email accounts of Chinese human rights activists, but only managed to access two unidentified accounts, and then only headlines and other data such as when an account was created.

It did not say what information the hackers tried to access from the other corporations, nor which they were. Google said it was working with the U.S. authorities. Click here for after-hours Google stock quotes.

"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," Google said in a statement.

"We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

[Admin]

If people start pulling out of China, it may force China to rethink the way it runs it's country and the businesses there. I see this as a good thing. If more companies do this, it will send a message and that will be better for the Chinese people (in the long run).

[Eric]

That sounds good. I think more big companys should do something like this on China to say that it's not OK to block the internet. It should be open and free.

[WERA689]

Thumbs up to Google! This is the right way to handle this kind of thing in China. They may be a huge upcoming economic power, but they have a long way to go...

[TheDude]

Originally Posted by dandroid

via cnbc..

Google is considering shutting down its China operations and website after hackers in China coordinated a "highly sophisticated" cyber-attack on the Internet search giant in December and targeted at least a score of other major corporations, it said on Tuesday.

Google [GOOG 590.48 -10.63 (-1.77%) ] said the hackers had tried to access the Gmail email accounts of Chinese human rights activists, but only managed to access two unidentified accounts, and then only headlines and other data such as when an account was created.

It did not say what information the hackers tried to access from the other corporations, nor which they were. Google said it was working with the U.S. authorities. Click here for after-hours Google stock quotes.

"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," Google said in a statement.

"We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

I'm never one to be a fan of oppressive governments trying to control the information their people have access to. Google needs to quick the tough talk and actually do something, they have been silent on this for over a week.

[iDrian]

The desireable outcome for Google would be staying in China, since I'm guessing the commercial market there is huge. So before they do anything irrational like pulling out, I think they will try to reach a different outcome.
I'm just saying, huge amounts money come before a lot of things in this world.