China just sucks!

BEIJING — Google Inc.’s partial withdrawal from the China market brought swift condemnation from the government Tuesday while leaving Chinese Web surfers to wonder whether they would be able to access a new offshore search engine site or be blocked by censors.

Google’s decision to move most of its China-based search functions to Hong Kong opened a new phase in a two-month-long fracas pitting the world’s most powerful Internet company against a government that tightly restricts the Web in the planet’s most populous market.

A bulletin from China’s state-run news outlet Xinhua blasted Google in a post titled “China says Google breaks promise, totally wrong to stop censoring.”

Meanwhile, however, a few Chinese passers-by laid flowers or chocolates on the large metal “Google” sign outside the company’s office building in northern Beijing. Many Chinese felt caught in the middle, admiring Google for taking a stand against censorship but wondering whether the government might further punish the company.

“I don’t know what the Chinese government will do to Google next,” said Zhou Shuguang, a well-known blogger who uses the online name “Zuola.” “But I welcome the move and support Google because an uncensored search engine is something that I need.”

After threatening to quit China over cyberattacks and legally required self-censorship, Google announced early Tuesday Beijing time that its Chinese search engine, google.cn, would automatically redirect queries to its service in Hong Kong, where Google is not legally required to censor searches.

The shift did not mean, however, that Chinese were suddenly allowed unfettered access to everything on the Internet. Chinese government Web filters – collectively known as the Great Firewall – automatically weed out anything considered pornographic or politically sensitive. The move, in effect, shifts the responsibility for censoring from Google to the communist government.

Beijing responded swiftly, testily declaring that Google violated commitments it made to abide by China’s censorship rules when it entered the China market in 2006.

Google China FALLOUT: Google’s Exit Angers China.

Google likes to trumpet transparency and free expression, especially when it concerns the internet, part of its commitment to the corporate motto, “Don’t Be Evil.”

But despite the company’s recent online public policy posts espousing unfettered online expression, we aren’t buying it.

The Mountain View, California, search and advertising giant said Wednesday, for example, that it was a “company that believes deeply in free expression” and that it was “determined to continue to do our part and make new, significant contributions to promote free expression in 2010.”

But juxtapose those and other recent statements on its public policy blog with the real facts — facts that Google won’t cough up.

We asked Google some simple questions about how much user data it turns over to the government. These are questions at the heart of free expression, especially with a company that wants you to use its operating system, its browser, its DNS servers, its search service and its e-mail and phonecalling programs.

Google, however, declined to address the question adequately.

Here’s Google’s answer, as provided by spokesman Brian Richardson:

We don’t talk about types or numbers of requests to help protect all our users. Obviously, we follow the law like any other company. When we receive a subpoena or court order, we check to see if it meets both the letter and the spirit of the law before complying. And if it doesn’t we can object or ask that the request is narrowed. We have a track record of advocating on behalf of our users.

What is Google hiding? Are the numbers so big that Google might be seen as an agent of the government, or that people might rethink the wisdom of filling up 7 GB of free e-mail space?

These are questions we’ve been asking of Google since 2006, when it launched its five-point plan to deal with censorship in China.

To be fair, no other tech company and no ISP publishes this data, either.

But there’s certainly no law against it. Google prides itself on doing brave and innovative things that other companies wouldn’t even consider doing, just because it’s the right thing to do.

But instead, Google has chosen to side with the rest of the industry and refuse, on principle, to be open with their customers. That makes us think Google agrees with some peers that suggest that the public simply can’t handle the truth.

Verizon, for example, recently told the government it might “confuse” the public if it released how much it charged the government to assist in collecting user data via pen register/trap-and-trace orders and wiretaps.

Read the full article:

Google Talks Transparency, But Hides Surveillance Stats | Threat Level | Wired.com.