A day after Google's buggy censorship of sites for Chinese-users was revealed, the search giant has responded by fixing its filters so topics such as beer and jokes are no longer deleted.
An investigation published Thursday by CNET News.com showed that Google's new China search engine not only censored criticisms of the Chinese government, but went further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting sites related to teen pregnancy, alcohol, dating and homosexuality.
On Friday morning, however, those previously verboten sites became available through Google.cn. That brings Google's filtering in line with blacklists used by Microsoft and Yahoo.
Sites still banned
bignews.org
chinesenewsweek.com
falunasia.info
faluncanada.net
hrw.org
libertytimes.com.tw
news.bbc.co.uk
omnitalk.com
pressfreedom.com
savetibet.org
voa.gov
Sites now permitted
budweiser.com
catholiclesbians.org
collegehumor.com
date.com
lingerie.com
playboy.com
jackdaniels.com
queernet.org
search.msn.com
seas.upenn.edu
teenpregnancy.org
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Earlier in the week, however, the company had said that its product launches are typically "followed by a process of identifying and correcting bugs or other technical issues. Google.cn is no exception, and we will continue to refine our processes to ensure that we are filtering the minimum necessary."
"Before this, I was actually of the mind that if you're doing the disclosure, this is the way to go," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com. "The more I thought about this, I realized this is evil. You're caving into censorship that you in your heart of hearts don't believe in."
Even though Google founder Sergey Brin had promised that deletions would be listed, the initial version of Google.cn frequently did not do so. The debugged version appears to have fixed that problem.
It's not entirely clear what caused the initial version of Google.cn's embarrassing bugs, which had caused Microsoft sites and the University of Pennsylvania's engineering school to vanish from search listings.
One potential explanation is that Google had been using a version of its "SafeSearch" software, which it describes as adult-site filtering technology that "checks keywords and phrases."
SafeSearch has proven to be flawed in the past. A 2004 investigation by CNET News.com showed that it blocked many innocuous Web sites based solely on strings of letters such as "sex," "girls" or "porn" embedded in their domain names. PartsExpress.com, ALittleGirlsBoutique.com, RomansInSussex.co.uk, ArkansasExtermination.com and BassExpert.com, for instance, were incorrectly identified as pornographic.
Google.cn seemed to work the same way, delisting an Essex County Web site apparently because the word "sex" appeared in the the domain name.
Because access from China to the U.S.-based Google.com site is limited for financial and political reasons, the vast majority of Chinese are forced to turn to domestic search engines instead. Google's Brin has estimated that Google.com is available to only half of the country's users. Other reports say that when search terms such as "Tiananmen Square" are typed in on Google.com, the site immediately becomes unreachable for a few hours.
googlewatch! - is google blocked from _outside_ china?!
the sidebar on un/blocked sites is an excellent resource ... it should become part of a 'googlewatch' feature!
this may be just a fluke - but google.com.cn (and goggle.cn) are automatically referred to google.ca (when that is the default value stored in the browser's cache).
which means that outsiders do not have a way to conduct their own tests!
(and if this is true, then did cnet perform the tests from within china?)
Chinese people will simply stop using google to search, and opt to get their news elsewhere. Sadly, the Chinese governement probably has control at an ISP level to filter out content. A way around this may be to provide some sort of long range wireless. We have to help them keep a few steps ahead.
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Samsung Galaxy mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
Tor's "obfsproxy" technology would make encrypted data look innocuous and let it dodge government censors. That could help citizens in Iran reach blocked sites as antigovernment protests reportedly loom.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
:-)
too bad the devils put it back :(
Walt
this may be just a fluke - but google.com.cn (and goggle.cn) are automatically referred to google.ca (when that is the default value stored in the browser's cache).
which means that outsiders do not have a way to conduct their own tests!
(and if this is true, then did cnet perform the tests from within china?)
some clarification would be useful.
cheers: david
ps: camino 1b2 on panther 10.3.9