Google is still censoring search content for some of its customers in China, a company spokeswoman said yesterday, in a decision that underscores the Internet giant’s delicate effort to hold on to its Chinese businesses days after moving its search engine offshore.
The decision to provide censored searches was made to honor contracts with current business partners and Google will continue to meet those commitments, said Jessica Powell, the firm’s Tokyo-based spokeswoman.
She said that all censoring done by Google in China would be phased out over a time period she would not specify.
“If there are cases where we were providing a censored search and were contractually required to provide censored search, then we will honor those requirements,” Powell said.
In a separate e-mail she said that over time Google would “not be offering syndicated censored search to any partners in China.”
She declined to name the customers, but Li Zhi, an analyst for Analysys International, a Beijing research firm, said Google was likely referring to search services on sites such as Sina, China’s most popular portal, and Tianya.com, a popular forum site.
Tianya.cn announced late yesterday that it would take over operation of two services developed and formerly operated with Google.
It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Tianya.cn’s decision to take over the two sites.
One analyst said the portal may have come under pressure to distance itself from Google or perhaps it was a sign that Google itself had decided to break more of its ties to China.
Google’s search services remained erratic across Beijing yesterday, frustrating users unsure about the future of its other services — from maps to music.
Many of Google’s often well-educated, professional fan-base in China, who use its software for both work and play, said they were already suffering some fallout yesterday with erratic service.
Several of Google’s international search sites were failing to open, and when they could be accessed some users found that all searches, including for non-sensitive terms like “hello,” were returning blank pages or error messages.
Businesses, university students and people in private homes reported intermittent problems on the main Google.com site, the Google.co.uk site and Google.ca.
“Google.com.hk is not currently being blocked, although it seems that some sensitive terms are. However, if you search for a sensitive term and trigger a government blockage, that may affect subsequent searches ... for a short period,” Google said.
The People’s Daily yesterday accused the company of colluding with US spies, in China’s latest blast at the company.
“Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the US intelligence and security agencies is well-known,” a front-page commentary in the overseas edition of the paper said.
“All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the United States’ big efforts in recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle,” it said.
Also See: Google criticizes Canberra
Also See: Remaining Google units exposed to whims of an angry Beijing
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
RSS