Monday, March 15, 2010:
Google, the world's biggest Internet search engine, said today in a statement that it is still engaged in discussions with the Chinese government about censorship of its Chinese-language search portal, despite the writing on the wall which indicates its imminent pullout. Google has been embroiled in a two-month standoff with Beijing over Internet censorship issues, and Google's claims that it and other companies were targeted by Chinese hackers.
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Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, had said last week he hoped something of substance would emerge from talks with Chinese officials regarding a censor-free search engine in a country that counts 384 million Internet users. The consensus among IT industry experts is that China would never really allow a censor-free Internet, and last weekend the Financial Times said the talks had reached a deadlock, and that Google was "99.9 per cent" certain to pull the plug on its Chinese search engine, Google.cn.
A Google spokesperson today commented that talks were still on with Chinese authorities, but cautioned that the Internet giant would not subject itself to self-censorship. "We've been very clear that we are no longer going to self-censor our search results," the anonymous spokesperson told Reuters.
However judging by the tone of foreign news reports and China's own state-run media, it seems almost a matter of time before Google shuts down its Chinese site, reports Yahoo! News.
Ashish Joshi, EFYTIMES News Network
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