Google vs China thread

[booo]

Clinton calls on China to explain cyber attacks as Google threatens to pull out

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today called on Beijing to explain cyber attacks originating from China against internet search giant Google and at least 20 other firms.

Google is considering withdrawing from China after it experienced a massive cyber attack late last year that resulted in the theft of intellectual property.

“We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions,” Ms Clinton said in a statement issued while she was visiting Hawaii for talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.

“We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy.

“I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of Internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear.”

The attack was also made on about 20 large corporations operating in China and the company says it has evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The unprecedented threat by the world biggest internet company casts China’s notorious disregard for intellectual property in an entirely new light and potentially raises a major obstacle for the country’s push for wider acceptance in the global community.

Google was criticised when it launched Google.cn in 2006 for accepting government censorship, but said this will now stop and over the next the few weeks will discuss with the Chinese government the basis on which it could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.

“In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China resulted in the theft of intellectual property from the company,” Google’s corporate development and legal officer David Drummond wrote in a blog post.

Google did not identify the source of the attacks and has not directly blamed the government but said that the attacks had been focused on Gmail accounts of political activists. On Christmas Day China locked up its leading intellectual dissident Liu Xiaobo for 11 years. He is appealing the sentence.

“As part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties,’ Mr Drummond said.

“These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.”

International technology companies and other corporations have long been wary of operating in China for fear of having intellectual property stolen.

“We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech,” Mr Drummond said.

“In the last two decades, China's economic reform programs and its citizens' entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

“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.

“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.

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

Still, unlike the rest of the world Google does not have a winning market share in lucrative internet search in China, with local search engine Baidu taking the honours with a share of more than 60 per cent.

 

[booo]

Statement on Google Operations in China

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
January 12, 2010

We have been briefed by Google on these allegations, which raise very serious concerns and questions. We look to the Chinese government for an explanation. The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy. I will be giving an address next week on the centrality of internet freedom in the 21st century, and we will have further comment on this matter as the facts become clear.



PRN: 2010/038

 

[xuxu1457]

BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- An official with China's State Council Information Office Wednesday said Chinese Internet authorities were seeking more information on Google's statement that it could quit China.

The high-ranking official, who requested anonymity, made the remarks in a phone interview with Xinhua, a day after Google's corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, posted a statement Tuesday on the company's official blog, saying it was to "review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

"It is still hard to say whether Google will quit China or not. Nobody knows," the official said.

He refused to reveal more information, but promised to follow the case and accept more interviews if possible.

Google's possible retreat from China has prompted the company's 700 China staff to fear for their jobs.

"We were told that Google might quit China at a general meeting on Wednesday morning, and all of us feel very sad," said an employee with Google's Beijing office on condition of anonymity.

Drummond's post said that censorship in China and recent attacks targeting Google's services in China forced the company tomake the review.

The post also indicated the possibility that Google may "shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

If Google did quit China, about 700 employees with the company's offices around China would lose their jobs, the anonymous employee said.

In a short reply to Xinhua questions Wednesday, a public relations officer named Lynn Lin said, "We are proud of our achievements in China. Currently we are reviewing the decision and hope for a resolution."

Drummond's post also said Google would try to negotiate with Chinese government for more favorable operating conditions in China.

However, the anonymous employee told Xinhua that most Google employees were pessimistic about the outcome of the negotiations.

"No agreement will be reached with both sides refusing to give in," he said.

 

[xuxu1457]

Why can't change the main lead

 

[zb68930171]

Never mind ,I always use BAIDU

 

[booo]

“It’s Not Google that’s Withdrawing from China; It’s China that’s Withdrawing from the World”

The twittersphere has exploded with the news of Google’s potential exit from the China market. CDT has translated selected tweets. Read all tweets at #Googlecn

- @qhgy RT @Lyooooo: If Google leaves I won’t use Baidu or let my children or grandchildren use it (If I have them) #GoogleCN
- @clowwindy The wings of some birds are too pretty; to lock them in a cage to enjoy them is evil #GoogleCN
- @miyafan Now begin doing two tasks 1. Quickly use Google to search censored material 2. study how to scale the wall #GoogleCN
- @aiww Long live Fanfou, long live Google #GoogleCN
- @zz4040 Google is a real man #GoogleCN
- @laoxipi Netease translated the Google blog’s statement and it’s already been harmonized #GoogleCN [The Chinese version is available on Netease as of this posting here H/t @davesgonechina.]
- @Fenng Ten years online has turned me from an optimist into a pessimist #GoogleCN
- @xuxiaoxuxiao Respect Google for: 1 Doing what you should, even if it’s not easy 2. Protecting your heart and your clients
- @lysosome On campus discussion forums Google tag has been removed #GoogleCN
- @mranti Withdrawal of Google means: 1 Scaling the wall is now an essential tool 2 Techies, you should immigrate. Really #GoogleCN
- @secretaryzhang Dept of Truth orders that news about Google’s withdrawal must come from Xinhua or People’s Daily; must not be recommended on front page; and comments or interactive sections must be closed
- @fqx Google should publicize the GFW blacklist, or at least leak it to wikileaks.
- @kensenjiha Let me guess the formal name of the GFW: People’s Great Firewall.
- @huyong Yang Huanning, the Deputy Minister of Public Security said: We coordinate two large games, domestic and international, and master two battlefields: online and offline…. Wang Chen, director of State Council Information Office said: China’s Internet is sufficiently open, online speech is very dynamic. / what an open battle field we have!
- @StarKnight: Post-90s generation: Today I scaled the wall, saw an overseas website called Google, but it was just a copy of Baidu. Post-00s: What is scaling the wall? Post-10s: What is a website? Post-20s: What is overseas?
- @ llianyue If in the future #google becomes a sensitive word, then all websites will hit the wall.
- @jason5ng32: The Tsinghua Science Park security declared “illegal flower donation” but searching this phrase on Google or Baidu has no results. China has now created a new term: “illegal flower donation”! To put “illegal” and “flower donation” together in one phrase, we live in an era of truly distorted values.
- @hecaitou: After Google leaves China, the world’s top three websites on Alexa —Google, Facebook and Youtube are all blocked in China. This is not an issue of Google abandoning China, but one of China abandoning the world. #googlecn
- @jason5ng32 #GoogleCN The Gtalk signature of my friend who works at Google China is: fucked
- @hecaitou This is Google! #GoogleInCN
- @codebeta Although I’m not very happy, I have to admit this is indeed a right decision for Google.
- @tomwng The real excellent enterprises all consider advancing human civilization as their own responsibility. For those on the other side, they not only draw the line, but also harshly condemn! Google says no to the Chinese government— this should be written into human history. Official Google Blog: A new approach to China #googlecn
- @cxzj If Google chooses to leave with dignity, I’ll understand and support this decision, and see it there outside the Great Firewall. My only expectation is Google can study the technology on how to break through the Great Firewall after it leaves, in order to erase its humiliation of having been emasculated and befouled for so many years in China.
- @hutianyi If Google leaves the Dynasty unwillingly, I’ll follow it forever, even I’ll have to use proxy software all day long, or even pay for VPN. RT @guao: Having found its email system been attacked by Mainland China, Google claimed it will probably leave Mainland China. Google ?????????????????????????? | ???????????
- @cxzj: Is it really time to say goodbye to Google? I suddenly feel very upset in my heart…
- @postdadaist: Legal Evening News just hit the newsstands with a front page story on Google #googlecn
- @cxzj: It’s not Google that’s withdrawing from China, it’s China that’s withdrawing from the world #GoogleCN

 

[xuxu1457]

Never mind ,I always use BAIDU

I use Baidu and Google both,I mean why I can't change the Major heading in this thread

 

[booo]

Google Just Says No To China: Ending Censorship, Due To Gmail Attack

Google has revealed that the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were targeted last December in a hacking attempt. That, along with other issues, has convinced the company that it will no longer censor results China as the Chinese government wishes.

In particular, Google has willingly allowed self-censored its search results since January 27, 2006, on its Google China service. The screenshot above show an example of this, where a search for tiananmen on Google China (on the left) doesn’t bring up protest pictures as you get when searching for the same thing on Google’s main site at Google.com.

Google was heavily criticized for caving into China, especially in light of its “Don’t Be Evil” motto. Google CEO Eric Schmidt at one point explained that Google developed an evil scale to weigh if it was better to be a little evil in censoring for the bigger good in bringing information to the Chinese people.

That scale has now tipped so much that Google’s effectively pulling out entirely of censorship. As it has investigated attacks on its Gmail service, Google has decided cooperating on censorship makes no sense. I’ve bolded the key part from today’s blog post:

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. 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.”

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. 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.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

What was the attack that triggered all this? Google says that in mid-December, it detected an attack from China on its “corporate infrastructure” that resulted in the theft of “intellectual property” from Google. What that property was isn’t disclosed, but it seemed to involve trying to access the Gmail accounts of some Chinese human rights activists. Google says no actual emails were recovered, however:

We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Google also said that it was not the only company to have been attacked in this way:

As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Also as part of its investigation, Google says it has also determined that Gmail accounts of some activists HAVE been accessed but not because of a Google security breach but instead do to activists being victims of malware or phishing attempts:

As part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers

Google does not explicitly say that the Chinese government itself was behind or condoning the attacks, nor could I get them to confirm this in talking about the move. But that’s the implication. It makes little sense to tell the Chinese government that you’ll no longer cooperate with it on censorship because of hacking attempts unless you believe those had government approval.

Google & Censorship

To understand more about how Google has censored in China, I highly recommend reading Google’s Gatekeepers, a New York Times Magazine article from 2008 that looked in depth at the issue. On the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, Google also blocked all searches for those words, not just particular content that the Chinese government might have deemed illegal. Google also applies censorship to the sources it carries in the Chinese version of Google News.

The censorship is not perfect. For example in a search for tiananmen square, I got images of injured people on Google China (the first and fourth images below, reading from left to right):

Of course, if I were actually within China, the images that I see above might have been better filtered. It’s also confusing to know what anyone sees exactly, since Google shifted to personalizing results for each individual back in December.

China is also not the only country that Google censors in. Google also pulls content in a wide range of other countries, including places like Germany and the US, depending on national laws. For example, in a search for american nazi party on Google Germany, you can see that Google has censored one result through the disclaimer it shows at the bottom of the page:

Similarly in a search for Addicted To Bass Winter 2009 download on Google in the US, six pages have been removed because of a copyright infringement claim:

In China, disclaimers are also posted when content is removed, as you see here:

So one issue Google now faces is why it will now fight Chinese censorship but not censorship in other countries. The answer is likely that Google will seek to curb the widespread censorship that China demands especially on political discourse. That such widespread censorship, even though legal in China, is simply too restrictive and unreasonable for Google to operate under.

Google & The Chinese Market

Google has diligently worked to build marketshare in China over the years, one of the few countries where it is not the dominant player. When it failed to censor, it found itself losing traffic due to government blocking to the leading player there, Baidu. The ability for people to find music, not always legally, in Baidu also has contributed.

In another example of its efforts in China, Google underwent a huge fight with Microsoft to retain Kai-Fu Lee as president of its China operations. Lee was formerly a Microsoft employee. In 2008, Lee said his goal was to make Google the Chinese market leader in five years. Google won the fight for Lee, though he eventually left the company late last year.

Postscript: I sent across some further questions to Google, and here’s what I’ve received from the company:

Can you say more by what you mean about intellectual property? Are you talking some of the code that runs Gmail or what?

This is the subject of an ongoing investigation, and we simply cannot comment on the details.

It sounds like you’re saying the Chinese government was behind this. Is that the case?

We’re not going to speculate, because we don’t know. What’s clear is that the environment in which we are operating in terms of an open Internet is not improving in China. That, combined with these attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered, mean that we’re no longer comfortable self-censoring our search in China.

Is the censorship ended as of 3pm Pacific, or is there a phase out?

Via the blog post [we've said]: 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.

That suggests that censorship is continuing for the time being and may do so over the coming weeks.

Postscript 2: There’s building related coverage of the news here on Techmeme. now. I’d also recommend watching long-time China watcher Rebecca MacKinnon’s blog for her take, which I expect will appear in the near future.

Postscript 3: I’ve been talking with people on Twitter, along with some journalists who’ve called me, about the whole “Is Google doing this because it’s losing in China” thing.

No, I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think it’s a reasonable question to ask, of course. When Google first started censoring, the company’s stance was that primarily, they thought being in China overall was a good thing for the Chinese people and secondarily, it was a good business move for Google. I think people at Google convinced themselves to believe that, even though the primarily move in my mind is that they did censoring for business reasons.

Here we are three years later. Google’s losing, so it wants to get out, and this is a good excuse? Google’s still got a pretty solid share, depending on what numbers you want to look at. From Fortune, from the third quarter of last year, Baidu was by far the leader, with 77%. But Google had about 17% of the market — well behind, but almost double what Bing has in the US market. It’s a healthy percentage.

Moreover, as I often warn when it comes to marketshare percentages, you also have to ask what about the search volume. It’s possible for a company to have its search percentage decline but the number of actual searches it handles go up. That’s because the overall search “pie” itself gets larger. A smaller slice of a bigger pie can be bigger than a big slice of a small pie. And if you look at this PC World article for about the second quarter of last year, Google’s search volume was up.

Marketshare numbers in the US are also incredibly slippery creatures. Some ratings services don’t count things like “local” results. Some of them count a search refinement as a “new” search even though effectively, the same search session is happening. These same complication likely apply to estimates of the Chinese market. And what’s the revenue per search? In September, Forbes had a chart showing that Google’s revenue in China has risen in the past few years while Baidu’s had dropped.

Don’t get me wrong. Baidu is the Google of China, in terms of being dominant. Baidu seems as much a habit to Chinese searchers as Google is for searchers in other countries — and it’s tough for any challenger to break a search habit.

But are things really so dire for Google that it suddenly and abruptly threw in the towel today? Over at TechCrunch, Sarah Lacy talks about speaking with former Google China head Kai Fu Lee and his sense that Google couldn’t win as supporting evidence that today’s move was all about business:

When I met with Google’s former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.

Two sentences that are important to look at separately, which is why I’ve italicized the second one.

Let’s take the first. I’ve never spoken to Kai-Fu Lee, nor do I know him well. I do know Google fought hard to bring him in to China and after doing so, it didn’t grow. Was that because Lee himself wasn’t able to do it? Because Google itself simply can’t do it, because of the Baidu habit? Because of a variety of reasons out there? I don’t know. I do know that all this statement tells me is that Lee himself didn’t believe he could get Google into a winning position and decided he didn’t want to be helming a number two entry — not that Google was necessarily doomed to be a weak number two.

That leads to the second sentence. It’s easy to read that as if Lee himself is saying Google decided that doing business in China wasn’t worth it. It’s not. That’s Sarah Lacy making that statement — her opinion. Perhaps correct, perhaps not (just as my own opinion on this might be right or might be wrong). But it’s very important that it not be read as Lee himself saying he left because he thought Google had given up.

As I said on Twitter, Sarah seems far more a China watcher than I am. I’ve never even been to the country. So maybe she’s got a good read of the situation about Google’s prospects. Nor do I disagree that Google had a huge challenge ahead of it and potentially might not ever beat Baidu.

But seriously, this is how it gives up? I think you have to be really, really cynical to choose this as among all the reasons for it pulling out in the way it did. You have to assume Google decided this would somehow cloak its China failure (and if that was the case, it’s only highlighting it to some). Potentially, Google might have thought this was a good way to put pressure on the other challengers in China — Bing and Yahoo — to pull out. After all, they’ve been under political pressure here in the US to stop doing it. That pressure will probably grow.

While I’m not a China watcher, I am a long-time Google watcher. As I look at how the company has reacted, though the prism of my knowledge of what Google does and why it does things, this is personal first and foremost.

Look, it was incredibly disappointing when Google agreed to censor in China. I felt if Google couldn’t stand up to those demands, with its “Don’t Be Evil” motto, who would? And before I roll out the big bravo in the way that the EFF did today, I’m waiting to see that the censorship has really stopped with solid confirmation of it. Even then, glad that I’ll be for it to stop, it’ll still be tinged with disappointment that Google did it in the first place.

But what really made Google “get” that censoring in China was wrong, when so many said this three years ago? I think it’s because this time, Google’s “kids” were attacked.

Google is an engineering culture. The engineer rules over everything. And for these engineers, their creations are like children.

The Chinese hacking attacks that Google alleges are like an attack on those children. It’s a line that I think Google simply would not allow to be crossed. I think Google is reacting in the harsh way it did today because it feels like a mother who just watched some bully pick on their child. She’s going to pull the child close and say to the attacker, “Only over my dead body. Do what you want to me. You leave my child alone.”

And that’s what Google did today. Sure, Google says it hopes that it can find a solution with the Chinese government. But ultimately, it has had enough and simply doesn’t give a damn. It’s also a big enough company with plenty of revenue from other sources to be able to walk away — not to mention that it is ultimately controlled by two founders with a stock structure that means they can ignore whatever the markets might think, if they really want.

Postscript 4: The Wall Street Journal has a piece saying the decision was “hotly” debated among Google execs. CEO Eric Schmidt was worried about a possible backlash (from whom, the Chinese government? Google investors? That’s not said). Google cofounder Sergey Brin is suggested as a driving force for pulling out.

Brin was vocal shortly after the decision was made in 2006 that he felt Google had compromised its principles and made many wonder if the company would change its mind back then. Last January, Brin again expressed misgivings, calling the decision to censor a business “net negative.”

Meanwhile, via Rebecca MacKinnon, a picture of Chinese leaving flowers at Google’s headquarters in Beijing, I assume in support of the company’s move.

 

[booo]

Adobe and Google Both Reveal Intrusion Attempts

It's an eventful day. Just as they release an important new version of Acrobat, Adobe has also revealed that "...a sophisticated, coordinated attack..." was mounted "...against corporate network systems managed by Adobe and other companies..." At the same time, Google has revealed that a coordinated attack was mounted against their systems.

Both companies say that the attacks were unsuccessful. Adobe says that the investigation will take some time and that they will cooperate with the other companies and relevant governments.

Google's revelation of the attacks against them is much more detailed and interesting. The attacks turned out to be a coordinated attack on 20 companies in a variety of industries. But it gets worse: According to Google the primary goal of these attacks was to compromise the GMail accounts of human rights activists.

Enough is enough for Google it seems, and they have resolved not to censor their search results for their servers in China anymore. This may lead to the end of their business in China, but hurray for Google either way, and let's hope that other companies are as bold as they are about this.

 

[chinapakistan]

“It’s Not Google that’s Withdrawing from China; It’s China that’s Withdrawing from the World”

The twittersphere has exploded with the news of Google’s potential exit from the China market. CDT has translated selected tweets. Read all tweets at #Googlecn

Sorry, without "google", we have "baidu", and if google withdraw from china, the only result is make baidu strong. And i dont think google will withdraw from china, if they do that they will lost china market not only search site market aslo the market of Nexus One.
If they really do this, one day they will come back to china with their bow like obama, beg chinese gvot let them come back.......

 

[Communist]

China can do well without google. Google should respect China's national interests.

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

Sorry, without "google", we have "baidu", and if google withdraw from china, the only result is make baidu strong. And i dont think google will withdraw from china, if they do that they will lost china market not only search site market aslo the market of Nexus One.
If they really do this, one day they will come back to china with their bow like obama, beg chinese gvot let them come back.......

The sad part is India with all its self-claims of being an IT Powerhouse, still has no search engine nor email nor software nor hardware that its people use. Instead it only uses zio-controlled outlets. No freedom nor objectivity there.

Contrasted that with rest of Asia, where we are self-reliant and vibrant. When I was travelling in SE Asia I was amazed at how vibrant their society and government were (in contrast to false negative jewish-khazar media portrays them).

 

[prophicies_foretold]

Sorry, without "google", we have "baidu", and if google withdraw from china, the only result is make baidu strong. And i dont think google will withdraw from china, if they do that they will lost china market not only search site market aslo the market of Nexus One.
If they really do this, one day they will come back to china with their bow like obama, beg chinese gvot let them come back.......

google is more technically efficient then the bado or baidu whatever

 

[booo]

A new approach to China

1/12/2010 03:00:00 PM
Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident--albeit a significant one--was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users' computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government report (PDF), Nart Villeneuve's blog and this presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China's economic reform programs and its citizens' entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

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. 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."

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. 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.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

 

[Communist]

The sad part is India with all its self-claims of being an IT Powerhouse, still has no search engine nor email nor software nor hardware that its people use. Instead it only uses zio-controlled outlets. No freedom nor objectivity there.

Contrasted that with rest of Asia, where we are self-reliant and vibrant. When I was travelling in SE Asia I was amazed at how vibrant their society and government were (in contrast to false negative jewish-khazar media portrays them).

Very unfortunate.... we only have empty sympathy for them...