Bombshell: Google Threatens to Leave China

Call it the censoring straw that broke the back of the most powerful Internet operation on the planet.

A Google internet investigation has concluded that "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating in China" resulted in unauthorized access to Google email accounts belonging to human rights activists from that country.

In other words, after going through all the loops and contortions —such as agreeing to outrageous censoring practices— that the Chinese censors have historically demanded in exchange for remaining in business in that country, Google has had enough of it and is about to pull the plug on its Chinese operations.

Google announced its decision on this blog post.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that "we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

It takes courage to give up almost 30 percent of the world's largest Internet market.

But it remains unclear what kind of impact this move will have on the Chinese government other than being humiliated in front of the entire international community.

But shame is not Beijing's strong suit. So as long as they continue having their fingers on the controls, all this may just be another bump on the road toward a "harmonious Internet."