Google has moved its China internet search engine offshore to Hong Kong, but how long will the ‘quick fix’ last?
The search engine will now provide uncensored search results while still maintaining some business operations in the country with traffic to the mainland google.cn site being redirected to google.com.hk.
But, the Chinese government will still be able to block access to the services, which include Google search, news and images. How long can this solution last?
Google is intending to continue research and development work in China and maintain a sales presence there. However, the size of the sales force will be dependent on how many Chinese users will actually have access to google.com.hk.
Hong Kong – a former British colony – is a special administrative region of China and enjoys more freedom, such as uncensored internet, but China is still able to monitor it carefully.
On Google’s official blog, David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, said: “Today we stopped censoring our search services. We are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong.”
Attacks of Gmail accounts combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger, led Google to conclude that it could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.
Drummond said that figuring out how to make good on “our promise to stop censoring search” on Google.cn has been hard for the company.
“We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced,” he said. “It’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision.”
There are more than 380 million internet users in China and the search engine market is now estimated to be worth over $1.5 billion.
But the Chinese internet market is still relatively young, and as the rest of the nation starts to get online, the size of its search market is set to rocket. So it was never going to be good idea for Google to completely exit from China.
Will its new Hong Kong residence mean safety for advertisers, though?
Last week, a group of 27 Chinese advertising agencies sent Google a letter calling for talks over compensation for possible business losses if the internet giant does decide to fully withdraw from China.
Advertisers in the region have also advised clients to start transferring contracts to rivals as Google stands to lose millions of dollars in search revenue. Will they come back if Google’s future cannot be guaranteed?