Google may shut Gmail, Maps in China

Mar 30, 2011, 11.33am IST

BEIJING: Google Inc's defiance of China's censorship rules resulted in the world's most popular search engine being pulled out of the country 12 months ago. This year, the dispute may be spilling over to Gmail and maps.

As of yesterday, China's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping hadn't received an application from Google to keep offering its service, as required under regulations announced in May, according to Kou Jingwei, the bureau's spokesman. Jessica Powell, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on whether the company has applied. The deadline is tomorrow.

As Baidu Inc widens its lead in the world's largest Web market, a discontinuation of the mapping service would signal Google's dimming outlook in China, according to analysts, after the company blamed local censors for disruptions in its email service. The latest clash shows the government hasn't forgiven the Google's decision to halt compliance with censorship rules on Internet searches, said Christopher Tang, a professor of business administration at UCLA.

"Google faces major problems within China," Tang said. "Unless Google is going to change the way they operate, unless they are willing to apologise to the Chinese government, unless they are willing to cooperate with the Chinese government to impose censorship according to the wishes of the Chinese government. Otherwise, there's no deal."

Google British East India
A March 4 opinion piece in the official People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party, compared Google with the British East India Company, whose sales of opium in the country was the root of two 19th-century conflicts.

China introduced a new licensing system for Internet mapping services in May to "address illegal practices" and an "inadequate awareness of national security," the official Xinhua News agency reported March 21. Since 2008, online mapping services have committed more than 1,000 violations including unauthorised disclosure of confidential information and mistakes in drawing the country's border, Xinhua reported.

As of mid-February, the bureau had granted licenses to 105 websites for mapping services, including Baidu, Sina Corp, a Nokia Oyj joint venture and China Mobile Ltd, Xinhua said. The bureau has pledged to close unapproved websites.

The Bureau said applications for license must be made by March 31, to avoid "administrative actions" it will take by July 1. The Bureau this month vowed "resolute punishment for serious violations," such as closing websites, Xinhua said.

License renewal

"We are examining the regulations to understand their impact on our maps products in China," Google said in a statement.

Google in July was able to renew its Internet-service license in China through 2012, even after shuttering its Google.cn site in China and redirecting users to a Hong Kong site. The company had said it was no longer willing to comply with online censorship rules on topics such as Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 and Tibet independence.

In the latest round of friction, Google accused local censors of disrupting its Gmail email service and disguising the blockage as technical issues on Google's behalf. China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu on March 22 called that claim "unacceptable."

"In the 17-19th centuries, the East India Company made their contribution for the development of a British Empire where "the sun never sets" through the monopoly of trade, the opium trade and openly looting," the People's Daily piece said. "Google is essentially similar to the East India Company, but is smarter in its performance than the East India Company. Google does not burn and loot, and they are also good at camouflage."

Opium war
China fought the first Opium War with the British Empire in 1839-42, and a second from 1856-1860.

Beyond Google's own history of conflict with China's censors, the company is now also being perceived as a greater threat to the government in light of popular unrest throughout North Africa and the Middle East that has already brought down regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, said James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy group.

"Google's caught in some larger political issues," Lewis said. "It's a very big problem, and the events in the Middle East have made it a little bit bigger."

Google executive Wael Ghonim helped set up a website for Egypt opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei as anti-government protests in the Middle Eastern country toppled President Hosni Mubarak. Ghonim's 11-day detention turned him into a hero for a disaffected Egyptian youth.

Blocking Facebook
China, the world's largest Internet market with 457 million Web users, bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party. It already blocks Google's YouTube site as well as social networking websites run by Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.

The People's Daily piece, which also called Google "a tool of US expansionism and hegemony," ran on other popular websites in China including Tencent Holdings Ltd's QQ.com and Sina Corp.

Without specifically commenting on the People's Daily piece, Mountain View, California-based Google denied that the US government meddles in its affairs.

"Contrary to assertions made by the Chinese media, every decision we have made regarding China has been made by Google alone," the company said March 7 in an emailed reply to Bloomberg News.

Widening gap

Baidu accounted for 75.5 per cent of China's search engine market by revenue in the fourth quarter, rising from 73 per cent in the previous three months, according to research company Analysys International. Google's share dropped to 19.6 per cent from 21.6 per cent, the research firm said.

Google may fall further behind as companies such as Sina, owner of China's third-most-visited website, said it dropped Google's search engine to use its proprietary technology.

Google's China business is "immaterial to the overall financials," so the value of its operations in the country has more to do with the future than the present, said Clay Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. who rates the shares "buy" and doesn't own any.
China contributed about 1 per cent of revenue before it changed its approach in the country to search early last year, Moran estimates.

Sina stopped using Google's search service after the expiry of a contract, Liu Qi, a spokesman at Chinese Web portal operator, said in an e-mail today. The Shanghai-based company will instead use its own proprietary technology, he said.

"It's a lot less strategic than it was a year or two ago," Moran said. "Investors prefer to see Google maintaining a position in the country so that it can potentially benefit from growth in the future." (sourced :Bloomberg)

Tags : British Empire, China's censors, India, search engine

China Tightens Censorship of Electronic Communications

Mar21, 2011

BEIJING — If anyone wonders whether the Chinese government has tightened its grip on electronic communications since protests began engulfing the Arab world, Shakespeare may prove instructive.

A Beijing entrepreneur, discussing restaurant choices with his fiancée over their cellphones last week, quoted Queen Gertrude’s response to Hamlet: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” The second time he said the word “protest,” her phone cut off.

He spoke English, but another caller, repeating the same phrase on Monday in Chinese over a different phone, was also cut off in midsentence.

A host of evidence over the past several weeks shows that Chinese authorities are more determined than ever to police cellphone calls, electronic messages, e-mail and access to the Internet in order to smother any hint of antigovernment sentiment. In the cat-and-mouse game that characterizes electronic communications here, analysts suggest that the cat is getting bigger, especially since revolts began to ricochet through the Middle East and North Africa, and homegrown efforts to organize protests in China began to circulate on the Internet about a month ago.

“The hard-liners have won the field, and now we are seeing exactly how they want to run the place,” said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing analyst of China’s leadership. “I think the gloves are coming off.”

On Sunday, Google accused the Chinese government of disrupting its Gmail service in the country and making it appear as if technical problems at Google — not government intervention — were to blame.

Several popular virtual private-network services, or V.P.N.’s, designed to evade the government’s computerized censors, have been crippled. This has prompted an outcry from users as young as ninth graders with school research projects and sent them on a frustrating search for replacements that can pierce the so-called Great Firewall, a menu of direct censorship and “opinion guidance” that restricts what Internet users can read or write online. V.P.N.’s are popular with China’s huge expatriate community and Chinese entrepreneurs, researchers and scholars who expect to use the Internet freely.

In an apology to customers in China for interrupted service, WiTopia, a V.P.N. provider, cited “increased blocking attempts.” No perpetrator was identified.

Beyond these problems, anecdotal evidence suggests that the government’s computers, which intercept incoming data and compare it with an ever-changing list of banned keywords or Web sites, are shutting out more information. The motive is often obvious: For six months or more, the censors have prevented Google searches of the English word “freedom.”

But other terms or Web sites are suddenly or sporadically blocked for reasons no ordinary user can fathom. One Beijing technology consultant, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution against his company, said that for several days last week he could not visit the Web site for the Hong Kong Stock Exchange without a proxy. LinkedIn, a networking platform, was blocked for a day during the height of government concerns over Internet-based calls for protests in Chinese cities a few weeks ago, he said.

Hu Yong, a media professor at Peking University, said government censors were constantly spotting and reacting to new perceived threats. “The technology is improving and the range of sensitive terms is expanding because the depth and breadth of things they must manage just keeps on growing,” Mr. Hu said.

China’s censorship machine has been operating ever more efficiently since mid-2008, and restrictions once viewed as temporary — like bans on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — are now considered permanent. Government-friendly alternatives have sprung and developed a following.

Few analysts believe that the government will loosen controls any time soon, with events it considers politically sensitive swamping the calendar, including a turnover in the Communist Party’s top leadership next year.

“It has been double the guard, and double the guard, and you never hear proclamations about things being relaxed,” said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, an investment and strategy consultancy based in Beijing, and a 17-year resident of China. “We have never seen this level of control in the time I have been here, and I have been here since the beginning of the Internet.”

How far China will clamp down on electronic communications is unclear. “There’s a lot more they can do, but they’ve been holding back,” said Bill Bishop, a Internet expert based in Beijing. Some analysts suggest that officials are exploring just how much inconvenience the Chinese are willing to tolerate. While sentiment is hard to gauge, a certain segment of society rejects censorship.

For many users, an inoperable V.P.N. is an inconvenience, not a crisis. But Internet consultants said interfering with an e-mail service on which people depend every day is more serious. “How people respond is going to be more intense, more visceral,” one consultant said.

Google began receiving complaints from Gmail users and its own employees in China about a month ago, around the time anonymous Internet posts urged people unhappy with the government to gather every Sunday. Some Gmail users found their service disconnected when they tried to send or save messages.

Engineers determined that there were no technical difficulties on Google’s end, Google said; rather, the hand of the Chinese government was at work. China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond Monday to calls or faxed questions about Google’s statement.

Disrupting Web sites and Internet connections is a standard tactic in dealing with companies that fall out of government favor. Mark Seiden, an Internet consultant, said Chinese officials typically left the companies and users to guess the reason.

In the Google case, an article on the Web site of People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official publication, offered a strong hint. The March 4 article, attributed to a netizen, called Google a tool of the United States government. Like Facebook and Twitter, the article said, Google has “played a role in manufacturing social disorder” and sought to involve itself in other nations’ politics.

China has treated Google as a threat for some time. Last year, Google closed its search service and redirected Chinese users to Google’s Hong Kong site after the company said China was behind a cyberattack aimed partly at Gmail accounts.

Mr. Moses, the Beijing analyst, said the latest moves further expand government control of electronic communications. “The model for this government is that every day is a new challenge and a new opportunity to show the strength of the state here,” he said. “There is clear confidence in the capability of the political authorities to maintain order.” (sourced:NYTIMES)

Google Says Chinese Government Blocking Gmail Service

Mar 21, 2011 2:05 PM GMT+0530

Google Inc. (GOOG), the world’s largest Internet search company, said China’s government is blocking its Gmail service, after users reported trouble accessing the site.

Users of Gmail in China have had difficulty accessing accounts, sending e-mail and using other features of the service for the past two weeks. The landing page for the Web mail service is still visible to local Internet users.

“There is no technical issue on our side,” Mountain View, California-based Google said in an e-mailed statement today. “We have checked extensively. This is a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail.”

China, the world’s largest Internet market with 457 million Web users, bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party. It already blocks Google’s YouTube site as well as social-networking websites run by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Google moved its search-engine service out of mainland China last year and redirected users to Hong Kong to avoid having to comply with the country’s Web censorship rules.

“They will try to become more aggressive gradually,” Charles Mok, chairman of the Hong Kong branch of the Internet Society, said of China’s censors in an interview today. “Some things that were allowed or let go before, they gradually will clamp down on.”

‘Tool of U.S.’

Li Wufeng, chief of the Information Office Internet Affairs Bureau of China’s State Council, or cabinet, didn’t return a call to his office today. In a March 11 interview after Gmail users began reporting problems in China, Li said he regularly uses Gmail and that he was not experiencing the issues reported by other users of the service in China.

Google is “a tool of U.S. expansionism and hegemony,” according to a March 4 opinion piece posted on the website of the People’s Daily, a publication affiliated with China’s ruling Communist Party.

Google is “playing its political cards in China” after helping disseminate subversive content that led to disorder in Middle Eastern countries, according to the piece, written by a person identified as Zheng Yan.

The search-engine company has denied that the U.S. government meddles in its business decisions.

Google’s statement on China’s blockage was reported earlier by the Guardian newspaper.
Losing Ground

Google has been losing search-engine market share in China to Baidu Inc. since January 2010, when the U.S. company said it was no longer willing to self-censor content in its Chinese service in line with local rules. The decision was prompted by cyber-attacks on Google’s systems that the company said originated from China, including breaches of the Gmail accounts of some human-rights activists.

Two months later, Google shut its Google.cn service and redirected users to its Hong Kong site. China renewed Google’s Internet license in July after the U.S. company stopped automatically redirecting users and put in place a page that requires users to opt for the alternative service.

Google’s share of China’s search-engine market fell to 19.6 percent in the fourth quarter from 21.6 percent three months earlier, research company Analysys International said in January. Baidu’s China market share rose to 75.5 percent from 73 percent, the researcher said.

Google isn’t alone in drawing more scrutiny from China’s censors in recent weeks. Witopia Inc., a U.S.-based Internet service that allows users to circumvent the Chinese government’s Web filters, notified customers on March 17 that its service had been blocked in China the previous week.

Witopia Blocked

“We mostly provide service to expats and travellers working and doing business in China,” Witopia Chief Executive Officer Bill Bullock said an e-mail to customers in China. “People who simply want to communicate with family and friends back home using Facebook and Twitter. Not exactly revolutionaries.”

Witopia’s service in China was disrupted on March 11, Bullock’s note said. In language filled with references to the science-fiction television show “Star Trek,” Bullock vowed to provide customers in China with a solution to the new filters. Witopia didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“The Klingon Empire scored a couple solid hits on the USS Enterprise,” Bullock said in the March 17 e-mail. “As far as the state of the Enterprise, with regards to China, impulse power is restored, the warp drive and deflector shields are coming back online and, given a little time, we’ll be engaging our shiny new cloaking device.” (sourced :bloomberg)