A new approach to China: an update

3/22/2010 12:03:00 PM

On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—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—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. 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—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, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

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

以下为 Google 官方博客的全文翻译：

在今年1月12日，我们在这个博客上发表了声明，提到包括 Google 在内的超过20家美国公司遭到来源于中国的黑客入侵。在针对这些攻击的调查过程中，我们发现了一些和中国有关联的人{和}权活动者的 Gmail 帐户被第三方入侵的证据，这些攻击大多数是借助安插在他们电脑上的病毒和恶意程序进行的。这些攻击和监视行为——以及近年中国公民在互联网上的言论自{和}由被大大的限制，包括 Facebook、Twitter、YouTube、Google Docs 和 Blogger 等网站都相继被持续性的封锁——促使我们决定停止在 Google.cn 审查我们的搜索结果。

所以，今天早些时候开始，我们停止了对 Google.cn 所有搜索服务的审查：包括 Google 网页搜索、Google 新闻、Google 图片。访问 Google.cn 的用户将被自动跳转到 Google.com.hk，这里将为这些从 Google.cn 跳转过来的用户提供没有审查的简体中文搜索服务。在香港的用户依然可以通过 Google.com.hk 继续使用无审查的繁体中文服务。由于访问香港服务器用户会的突然增多和此次变化的复杂性，用户可能会在我们调整期间遇到服务速度变慢或者部分产品暂时无法访问的现象。

做出停止 Google.cn 搜索服务审查的决定是艰难的，我们希望世界上包括在中国大陆人民在内的更多人可以使用我们的服务。但是中国政府在与我们的谈判中非常明确的表示，自我审查是没有任何回旋余地的法律要求。所以我们相信通过 Google.com.hk 来提供无审查的搜索是一个符合情理的选择——完全符合法律，并且可以使中国人民获得更多的信息。我们衷心希望中国政府能尊重我们的决定，尽管我们知道通过这个方式提供的服务有可能随时被阻断。为此，我们建立了一个每天规律更新的页面来监控中国大陆访问各个 Google 服务的情况，这样所有人都可以随时看到哪个 Google 服务在中国可以访问。

由于 Google 有着广泛的业务，所以我们在中国大陆的研发机构和销售部门会继续保留，其中销售部门的规模将在很大程度上取决于是否能在中国大陆正常访问 Google.com.hk 。

最后，我们在此声明，所有关于本次事件的决定都来自于我们美国的管理团队，没有任何一个中国大陆员工可以或应该为此事承担责任。在今年一月我们宣布可能退出中国之后，我们位于中国大陆员工在面对巨大压力的情况下依然保证了中国用户和客户能正常访问谷歌中国各个服务，我们深深的为他们感到骄傲。

高级副总裁、公司发展和首席法务官 David Drummond 于 2010年3月22日 下午12:03:00 发布