China to Google: No porn, or else

Google has acknowledged that the Chinese government asked it to disable a search feature with the goal of censoring pornography, but it still won't say whether the government ordered tighter censorship around the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The New York Times reported Friday that Chinese government officials ordered Google to remove the search feature--known as Google Suggest--that displays related search terms based on the original query typed into the search bar or face unspecified punishment. Apparently some queries brought up related results with suggestive implications, leading to criticism from China's state-run media and government officials prior to Friday's move.

Google has long faced a difficult dilemma in China, reconciling the Chinese government's insistence that Internet companies censor their products with the company's desire to improve the world's access to information; not to mention the demands of shareholders for profits.

But despite acknowledging direct government intervention over pornography, Google is still unwilling to say whether or not the Chinese government ordered a temporary muzzle on its search engine around June 4, the 20th anniversary of the Chinese government's violent crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square.

For several days, Google.cn blocked all results for searches on Tiananmen Square, including ones that were entirely unrelated to the events of that day in 1989. Those results, such as travel-related sites, were restored last week.

In this case, however, Google was quite willing to state that it met with Chinese government officials to "discuss problems with the Google.cn service and its serving of pornographic images and content based on foreign language searches," a Google representative said in a statement.

The company is also putting some serious effort into making sure it complies with China's antipornography drive. "We are undertaking a thorough review of our service and taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results. This has been a substantial engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed the large majority of the problem results," Google said.

Just in case those efforts don't work, China still plans to require PC companies to install desktop monitoring software later this year, according to a separate report in The New York Times debunking claims earlier in the week that China was reconsidering the requirement in the wake of security problems with its Green Dam software.

[alflanagan]

Either Google is going to walk away from this entirely, or there'll be two Googles: a nearly useless Google.cn and the one everybody else on the planet uses. The regime in China is so terrified of freedom that they're mobilizing intellectual vigilante mobs to stop it. Does Google really want a part of that?

[pgp_protector]

Does Google really want a part of that ?

Yes, if they'll pay enough.

[Bob Kakis]

Communism is what happens when countries ban porn.

Freakin Commies!

[blusky08]

While not a proponent of any extreme system, China's problem is not primarily communism but its lack of democracy and tolerance.

[play7]

Again china is telling the world we are our own and the rest of the world follows us. Sure...........I really dont pay any attention to china and their games of " HEY LOOK AT ME"

" or there'll be two Googles: a nearly useless Google.cn and the one everybody else on the planet uses."

There already is exactly that.

And a lot of people in china use google.com, incidently. Google takes no part in blocking that....people forget that.
All google have done is add google.cn in *addition*....which is always online. (google.com is often offline due to chinas attempts to block it).

Also, as others have said, this has little to do with communism.
And,

[redsurrection]

Terrified of freedom or not is up to you to see for yourselves instead of believing your main stream media propaganda. I think its more like terrified of the American brand of freedom. I am sure the Iraqis can vouch for that. One thing I know though.. the hardliners and atheistic communists care more about their young people and kids that the clown running the western government.

[void(0)]

.... of course the communists care more for their kids, like... feeding them melamine.
redsurrection, stop defending the stupidity, these authoritarian government will soon be a relic of past.

[void(0)]

sad that western capitalism and government being funded by these thugs.

[pentest]

Funny how the right wingers in the US are the first to charge China with censorship over blocking porn, yet are the first in line to ban porn in the US.

[lonestarState]

Google should rename itself to GoCommies.com

[lonestarState]

Google should rename itself to GoCommies.com

[dacopper]

I to Google: no Google, thank God!

[globalist_agenda]

Arrest the IOC. Immediately. Remember the promise by the International Olympic Committe that awarding the 2008 Olympics franchise to China would result in more freedom for the Chinese? That worked out real well didn't it. It wouldn't have had anything to do with big $$$$$$$. Why of course not. Financial considerations never take precendent in dealing with China.

[redsurrection]

what the hell has freedom got to do with banning porn.. grow up

[jessiethe3rd]

Politics out of it - at the end of the day companies are companies and they'll do whatever they need to do to secure their business. What I find even more compelling is companies have rights and the rights of companies over shadow the rights of even people. If you lined up a companies persona with common traits of individuals they would all be considered psychopathic.

Politics back in... wonder how Google's instance of being a "good" company fit into it's profile now that it restricts freedoms. Certainly isn't the "goodie goodie two shoes" that is has tried to portray itself as.

[globalist_agenda]

People were hoodwinked when big media stopped referring to China as Communist China. Charles Manson should have changed his name to Charlie Brown. If you have a good PR agency you can get away with anything.

[moviegeek65]

I can't wait to hear what Notrth Korea and Iran want.

[redsurrection]

It about time to hear what they want than what USA want for a change.. btw, USA is just a colony of UK through the FED reserves.

[sharmajunior]

Wait, wait, wait...the first line says "Google has acknowledged that the Chinese government asked it to disable a search feature "....Isn't Google a search engine?

The Chinese gov't is merely asking them to shutdown their search in China...LOL

[sharmajunior]

What all these Companies should do is walk away from the country where they want to impose rule upon rule....restriction upon restriction. I understand 1 or 2 restrictions, that's normal with any gov't but there is n't any other country like China that has a whole god damn book of rules and restrictions. Maybe that can become the Chinese Bible.

[bajadesperado]

sharmajunior-this brings to mind the European Union and Microsoft's continous fights and fines,which is now focused on Win7 and IE browser. Well, Microsoft just decided to ship Win 7 without any browser and they are pissed. MS should just refuse to ship Win 7 to Europe. The EU has too many rules too! Walk Away? No, it's $$$$$ as previously stated in this comment section. Rights and $$$$ don't mix and co-exist in the same space...

[highlander2000]

Are you kidding me! Communism and porn go hand in hand.

[Proud_Geek]

Ironically, Chinese pr0n is EVERYWHERE on the internet.

[flickrz]

LOL. They virtually export everything to the world. Take the word 'virtually' literally.

[Lemon5]

Maybe it is because I am in the US and went to google china, but i googled Tiananmen Square on the image search and i got a picture of Tank Man (the man in front of the tanks).

http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananmen%20Square&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[awlop]

yes, I can open the link also. I am in China.

[ronesixteen]

The link only shows -one- picture of Tank Man, and Google probably thinks it's okay because it comes from "baidu.com", a popular Chinese News site. But if you do the same search on google.COM, what the rest of the world uses, you get very different images -- including crushed bicycles, and other shots of the event.

Compare:
google.COM: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Tiananmen%20Square
google.CN: http://images.google.cn/images?hl=zh-CN&q=Tiananmen%20Square

In China, Google.COM is often slow or blocked, because of the Chinese firewall, but it's not censored.
Because Google.CN is censored, the Chinese government doesn't block it, so it's always-on and faster.
So Chinese users get a choice. Choice is good.

[monkeyfun14]

Chinas fighting to hard to make themselves look perfect.

[TJ Spyke]

Google needs to stop supporting China's communist government. They already block all images related to the pro-demoracy protest at Tienanmen Square in 1989. Google has handed over to the goverment the IP and address info of someone who criticized the government (the government then arrested and jailed the person). They need to stop helping this oppressive government.

baja, I am with you in my complaints against the EU. They need to **** and stay out of business matters. Hell, video game manufacturers are legally not allowed to stop anybody from releasing content on their systems because the EU things that is a monopoly.

". Google has handed over to the goverment the IP and address info of someone who criticized the government (the government then arrested and jailed the person). They need to stop helping this oppressive government."

Not true.
That was Yahoo.

Google dont run any survice in China where you even -can- post anything. Thus they avoid that issue completely.
(ie, no gmail, no blogger etc)

[Lerianis3]

Actually, yes, true! The fact is that Google did the EXACT same thing that Yahoo did, yet there wasn't a big 'outcry' over it and the media glossed over it.

[oscarshu]

as a Chinese, I really hate the hypocritical act of the government, the porn is merely the pretext, and control of speach is what they want. The most regretful thing for the gov must be opening the access to internet.Now they may really envy the North Korea so I can not have a talk here.

[play7]

Wonder what "C" in CNET STOOD FOR? ????????

[flickrz]

C stands for CBS.

[flickrz]

Don't ask what 'C' stands for in CBS.

[eswinson]

Columbian

[gidstelios]

Basically it stood for Computer Networks but later became CNET. Thank wikipedia for that one.

[flickrz]

Chinese govt is the world's largest crook organization that manipulates people's free will. Not that I endorse porn but, blocking facts about Tiananmen's Square is the worst thing they are doing for coming generations. At the same time; they take pride in ancient chinese kings. Hypocrites!

[Lerianis3]

I endorse porn! The fact is that if people would have access to porn and a little d*ck and n**kie, most of the violence in our world would disappear. That includes pedosexuals, homosexuals, etc.

[redsurrection]

Well, I have travelled to China and saw the freedom and liberty to do business there. I must say that Chinese who operates within the law can continue to do their business and prosper. Funny thing is the Americans are dumbed enough to believe their mainstream media. Did u see the mainstream media report on the BUSH second election fraud and the programmer in charge of the vote count was arrested but somehow, it is not important enough to make it to the PRIME TIME news and u have George Bush Running Amok for another 4 years. Talk about hypocrisy.

[mraandthebigbrother]

The Official Broadcaster said Google has Porn contents on Image search and Google Suggest.
So let's think: who did it? States GOV, or China GOV?
WHY THERE STILL SOME PORN WEBSITES ON THIS WORLD?

[rouse51]

Is this really news worthy. Try asking the US to allow companies to let through kiddie porn, bomb making, terrorism websites. Countries have a right to pass laws. Google can either pull out or be forced out. Lets worry more about the fact that they have a huge and growing military not if they have a legal right to ban porn. Who the heck cares. Communist country bans porn, surprised? They are a communist country Duh.

[groink_hi]

@Lerianis3 - Wow, CNet also allows access to its site from the ACLU.

[Seven-MAN]

Maybe it should be open to all chinese...