Google Threatening to Stop Operations in China

Google is threatening to leave China after a dispute revolving around a cyber attack the search giant says "resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google." According to DailyFinance.com, Google is vowing to end its censorship of its Chinese language search site, a move that would be seen as thumbing its nose at the communist Chinese government.

In a post on the official Google Blog, Google SVP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said that Google had been the victim of a cyber attack that originated from inside of China. However, Drummond also said that Google's intellectual property wasn't the main target of the attack; rather, the hackers appeared to be interested in accessing the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China. While the attack only compromised two accounts on a limited basis, the subsequent investigation showed that "the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties."

According to Drummond, the attacks -- combined with China's efforts to curtail free speech online in the past year -- has led Google to "conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn," he said, "and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

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