In a post on Google’s official site, senior vice president David Drummond announced a change in the company’s China approach. The post, titled A new approach to China (update), said China’s online environment had continued to deteriorate over the previous year. Many prominent websites and services—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs, and Blogger among them—had been blocked. Against that backdrop, Google decided to stop filtering search results on Google.cn.
Starting that day, Google would no longer censor web, news, or image search on Google.cn. Visitors to Google.cn would be redirected automatically to Google.com.hk, where uncensored simplified Chinese search would be available. Traditional Chinese search for Hong Kong users would remain unchanged. Mainland users would be searching through servers in Hong Kong, so pages could load more slowly or sometimes be temporarily unavailable.
Drummond described the decision as difficult. Google wanted people around the world, including users in China, to be able to use its services. But negotiations with the Chinese government had made one point clear: search without filtering was illegal. Google therefore concluded that offering unfiltered results through Google.com.hk was a sensible choice. The arrangement was fully legal in Hong Kong, and it could still help mainland internet users reach more information. Google understood that the service could be blocked at any time, but it hoped the Chinese government would respect the decision. It also set up a page, updated daily, to monitor access to Google services from mainland China.
Because Google has a broad business, the original Google China research-and-development and sales teams would remain in the country. Some members of the sales team would be assigned to handle mainland users’ access to Google.com.hk.
At the end of the post, Google stressed that the decisions had been driven by managers in the United States, not by employees in China, and that Chinese staff should not be held responsible. It said it was deeply proud of those employees, who had faced enormous pressure while keeping Google China’s services running.
After the announcement, a check of www.google.cn showed an automatic redirect to www.google.com.hk. The homepage read: “Welcome to Google Search’s new home in China.” Google was indeed giving up google.cn. Its Chinese search service had finally withdrawn from mainland China. At that point, other google.cn services—Google Music, Google Hot Trends, iGoogle—were still accessible in China.
The moment felt like watching history being made. For the first time, Google, one of the world’s most influential technology companies, had withdrawn its search service from a country. That is not only a sorrow for Chinese internet users but a disgrace for Chinese people. The day carried a larger historical meaning: at a time when the global internet and technology revolution was moving fast, China took a firm step down the road of closing itself off.