NEW YORK—Google Inc., the company that made headlines in January for stopping its censorship in China, has been redirecting all users to its unfiltered Google.co.hk site based in Hong Kong.
However, the company said this week that in an effort to appease the Chinese Communist Party, Google plans to stop redirecting Mainland Chinese users to its Hong Kong site. All Chinese users will return to its Google.cn site, with a link to its Hong Kong search engine.
Beijing has warned Google that if it continues to redirect users to Hong Kong it would lose its Internet Content Provider (ICP) license to operate in China. Its license is up for renewal on June 30.
“Without an ICP license, we can’t operate a commercial website like Google.cn—so Google would effectively go dark in China,” said Chief Legal Officer David Drummond in an official Google blog posting.
In the blog, Google said that the maneuver would take effect over the “next few days.” It is unclear whether after the ICP renewal Google would continue to redirect users to its completely unfiltered site in Hong Kong.
While the search results are uncensored, users in China often cannot access particular websites as a result of the search. Websites related to democracy, Falun Gong, human rights, and the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre are often banned in China.
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