It would be amazing for Google to exit China, or refuse to continue censoring search results, but they seem to be seriously considering it.

http://www.theregist.../13/google_china/

Updated Google plans to curb its controversial practice of censoring search results in China after uncovering a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" designed to steal information about human rights activists from its Gmail service and at least 20 other large companies.

The attack that hit Google in mid-December originated in China and was aimed at accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists. Although only two email accounts appear to have been breached, "accounts of dozens of US-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China" have been routinely breached, most likely as a result of phishing or malware attacks, the company said Tuesday.

The discovery came as Google uncovered similar attacks on at least 20 other companies in the financial, technology, media, and chemical industries. Adobe Systems issued a separate statement that reported it and and other companies had also come under attack. In light of the revelations, Google said it is considering shuttering its Chinese operations altogether.

"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," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond wrote here. "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."

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It'll be very interesting to see how this turns out. If they stick to their guns, it'll make me feel better about them having so much of the world's information on their servers...

Cheers,
Scott.

It does seem as if Google has been holding its nose in China for a long time (recall the heat they took in agreeing to the filtering of results there).

Fallows' take (he's lived in China off-and-on for several years): http://jamesfallows....on_google_and.php

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Dealing with those requirements has been part of a non-stop set of difficulties for Google in China. More details about this later on. Like most other Western companies, Google has consistently decided to cope with the difficulties and stay in China. Part of the reason was the obvious commercial potential that the Chinese market has for almost any company in any industry. Another part was Google's argument -- which I basically believe -- that the Chinese public was better off with another source of information, even if constrained, than it would be without that option. But, as reported on Google's site, a latest wave of provocations and intrusions was simply too much.

[...]

In a strange and striking way there is an inversion of recent Chinese and U.S. roles. In the switch from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the U.S. went from a president much of the world saw as deliberately antagonizing them to a president whose Nobel Prize reflected (perhaps desperate) gratitude at his efforts at conciliation. China, by contrast, seems to be entering its Bush-Cheney era. For Chinese readers, let me emphasize again my argument that China is not a "threat" and that its development is good news for mankind. But its government is on a path at the moment that courts resistance around the world. To me, that is what Google's decision signifies.

Interesting times.

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who doesn't yet think things are as bad during as the Hainan EP-3 incident - http://en.wikipedia....n_Island_incident - but the trend isn't especially good, and China's economic bubble is worrying...)