An image you won't find on Google.cn
In response to Google’s blogpost concerning several attacks which were targeted at human rights activists GMail accounts during december, supposedly by the Chinese government, Chinese officials have this response (Jiang Yu, Chinese Foreight Ministry spokeswoman):
China’s internet is open and the Chinese government encourages development of the internet.
No it isn’t. The government requested Google to block search results for topics it considers as dangerous or subversive. The Great Firewall of China blocks websites without any form of clarification, peer review or international debate. For a country in the midst of rapid economic expansion, this is a tightrope walk which is going to end horribly. People deserve access to all knowledge, unfiltered and uncensored. (updated visualisation of blocked keywords and websites in china)
Don’t be evil now, Google.
I think Google is quite clear in their blog post:
“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn”
and
“We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
I’m happy to see Google is living up it’s “do no evil” credo, in spite of it being a bad business decision.
Btw, did you notice that this blogpost coincided with Gmail offering https as the default? https has been available for years, but gmail chose to use http as default, optimizing performance in favor of security. Now they’ve switched the two around.