January 13, 2010 at 20:07Google declares war on China
It's funny that I have not yet seen a single discussion in Russian of the latest news about Google and China. On Habré - only translation of a blog post. Perhaps it’s worth writing a summary of what happened and what follows from this.
This is what happened. Google in its official blog published a statement ( translation on Habré ) in which it said that at the end of December it underwent a massive and complex cyber attack, the purpose of which, apparently, was to access the mail accounts of Chinese human rights defenders. Fortunately, the attack was practically unsuccessful. In addition to Google, at least 20 other large companies, such as Adobe, fell victim to the attack .
How did Google respond to this? The first obvious measure is to strengthen security. For example, mail is now delivered by default via HTTPS . The second measure - Google is going to refuse to filter search results in China. This filtering was a prerequisite for service availability for the Chinese. It was introduced as a concession after Google was blocked in China several years ago. Actually, all companies working with China are forced to cave in one way or another under the Chinese government. For example, back in 2005, Yahoo issued official information to official bodies on the basis of which a Chinese journalist was convicted .
Google’s similar intention and public move is, in fact, an open confrontation with the Chinese official authorities. Of course, the blog post says that Google is ready for negotiations on the conditions for working with uncensored extradition, but nevertheless, as Techchranche writes , if there was hope for these negotiations, Google would not publish such a post. Unfortunately, Google cannot set ultimatums to China. China does not need it; it has Baidu. On the other hand, the assumption of the same author from Techcranch that this decision is based mainly on business considerations seems unfounded, as Robert Scoble writes in his article . Leaving the potentially largest market in the world, where you also have a fairly high position, is hardly a profitable decision.
Most likely, there is only one option for further developments: in a few days, Google in China will be blocked. It is not clear what will happen to the offices. It is unlikely that they will be closed in the near future, but how their further work will happen is unclear.
This is what happened. Google in its official blog published a statement ( translation on Habré ) in which it said that at the end of December it underwent a massive and complex cyber attack, the purpose of which, apparently, was to access the mail accounts of Chinese human rights defenders. Fortunately, the attack was practically unsuccessful. In addition to Google, at least 20 other large companies, such as Adobe, fell victim to the attack .
How did Google respond to this? The first obvious measure is to strengthen security. For example, mail is now delivered by default via HTTPS . The second measure - Google is going to refuse to filter search results in China. This filtering was a prerequisite for service availability for the Chinese. It was introduced as a concession after Google was blocked in China several years ago. Actually, all companies working with China are forced to cave in one way or another under the Chinese government. For example, back in 2005, Yahoo issued official information to official bodies on the basis of which a Chinese journalist was convicted .
Google’s similar intention and public move is, in fact, an open confrontation with the Chinese official authorities. Of course, the blog post says that Google is ready for negotiations on the conditions for working with uncensored extradition, but nevertheless, as Techchranche writes , if there was hope for these negotiations, Google would not publish such a post. Unfortunately, Google cannot set ultimatums to China. China does not need it; it has Baidu. On the other hand, the assumption of the same author from Techcranch that this decision is based mainly on business considerations seems unfounded, as Robert Scoble writes in his article . Leaving the potentially largest market in the world, where you also have a fairly high position, is hardly a profitable decision.
Most likely, there is only one option for further developments: in a few days, Google in China will be blocked. It is not clear what will happen to the offices. It is unlikely that they will be closed in the near future, but how their further work will happen is unclear.