Google Redirect Out of China

Posted by Michael Michelini on Mar 23 2010

So I am spending a day in Hong Kong….got more passport pages at the US Consulate….I’m watching CNN, was pretty cool as I haven’t watched it in years…

See reports about Google “uncensoring” its results……by sending google.cn to google.com.hk – which is basically going to Hong Kong search engine.

To me – that means THEY LEFT CHINA. For those of you who aren’t aware, Hong Kong is a special political and adminstrative zone, and is not censoring its internet. Therefore, google.com.hk has all the information about sensitive Chinese political cases….and yes…porn – which the government forbids.

So now…like the news says, its in Chinese government’s hands….wigoogle-hk-google-chinall they ban google.cn under the GFW (great fire wall) – and therefore not allow its people to go to google.cn that are currently being redirected to google.com.hk (unfiltered results)

If the Chinese government bans google.cn – then its people (and the people like me inside of China) will not be able to access google.cn – and probably neither google.com.hk . To add to the list of facebook, youtube, twitter, and others….great…

But would the chinese government ban the main google site, google.com ?

Another thing to keep in mind, the sites the government doesnt like that has the information is already banned, so if someone were to search on google.com.hk for sensitive political acts, and porno sites are blocked too.  The government is constantly blocking new sites each day….so therefore, if the result shows up in google’s search engine, then the user clicks the page, it will show “page not found”

google.com isn’t filtered in china, and works in china, and has always been like that, it just didn’t let you see the pages that the government blocked.

This whole story is about google.cn  – thats what people seem to forget….I don’t think Chinese government would block google.com – because Baidu.com is chinese only, and therefore all the Chinese people would be stuck with MSN’s Bing or Yahoo for search……

  • http://www.mailini.com nigel

    so it happened… I AM SHOCKED. thought it was just a joke… oops, don’t know what to say. just keep wathing what’s next…

  • http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

    yea…..this is history in the making Nigel…

    the problem is, once Google made the announcement, they couldn’t really back down…

    and the Chinese government isn’t going to let some foreign company tell it what to do..

    so, I kinda had a feeling this would happen..

    but lets watch closely, Chinese internet history class

  • http://www.mailini.com nigel

    let’s just hope for the best…

  • http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

    what sucks most is its people like you Nigel that lose the most from this…..you guys should be able to read whatever you want…learn

  • http://www.mailini.com nigel

    don’t worry, Mike, we are still young and time changes everything…

  • http://blog.michaelmichelini.com mike

    yes Nigel, I think the whole world is hoping the younger Chinese people are as open minded and positive as you

    keep it up my friend

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    [...] websites that do not comply with their censorship (ie twiter, facebook)  Remember the news about Google China leaving China?  Yea…..well, if they stopped listening to the chinese government about filtering their [...]

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    [...] Google china did end up leaving China……also the chinese yuan got approval from the chinese government to appreciate against the us dollar (meaning my US dollar income would buy less things in China)….and inflation was getting rampant in china – seeing housing, rent, salary, food, taxi prices all increasing…. [...]

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    [...] the beach, living life and wondered why can’t I do that.  I mean, over the past year, with problems with the internet in China and all the foreign companies in China having problems, I was hesitant to return to China / Asia.  [...]

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    [...] there was the news – would google china leave China? I was doing somewhat OK in China before this….but its like a punch in the gut. Google China [...]

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    [...] why am I in China? But still not enough reasons to pack up and leave. Then at the beginning of 2010 google left china ….the US dollar fear of mass decline, and just the annoyance of internet censorship by the [...]

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American ecommerce guy, I've been living in South China - Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Dongguan (+ a touch of Philippines) since end of 2007.

Successfully selling online since 2004, took it fulltime early 2007. Love international business & connecting, and working on ways to give hard working people global opportunities. (Read More...)

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