Google has said it could cease its business operations in China, after Google email accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists were hacked.
The American company said it started an investigation in December after discovering “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack”, originating in China, resulting in the theft of intellectual property.
Google said enquiries revealed a number of Chinese companies had also been targeted, including firms in the technology, chemical and media sectors.
The aim was to access Google email (Gmail) accounts of Chinese human rights activists, although investigators believe the hackers were largely unsuccessful and unable to read emails in the two accounts they did get access to.
Writing on Google’s official blog, corporate development and chief legal officer, David Drummond, said evidence of other attacks has also been found. He said the accounts of dozens of Gmail users across Europe and China appear to have been “routinely accessed by third parties”.
In light of these discoveries, Google has now threatened to pull out of China altogether. It is reviewing the feasibility of its business operations in the country and has decided it is no longer prepared to censor results on Google.cn. If negotiations with the Chinese government to run an uncensored search engine are unsuccessful, Google has said it will shut down the service and potentially close its China office.
Drummond said there are more issues to consider than simply security – the main one being freedom of speech.
He said: “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 it 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.’”
[...] Google announced it would consider pulling out of the country if the Chinese government refuses to let it operate without censorship. The move follows a series [...]
[...] this week Google went public with news of the attacks, and said it is considering pulling out of the country and ceasing its business operations in China. The search giant, which began operating in China in [...]
[...] US firm revealed it will no longer censor search results through Google.cn and is considering pulling out of the country and ceasing its business operations following a wave of cyber attacks, believed to have originated [...]
[...] the Chinese government following a dispute over the censorship of search results on Goole.cn and recent cyber attacks on the Google email accounts of human rights campaigners, believed to have originated in China. [...]
[...] is set to join forces with America's National Security Agency following a cyber attack on the search giant which originated in [...]
[...] January Google said it could cease its business operations in China, after Google email accounts belonging to Chinese [...]
[...] has been considerable speculation since Google announced in January that it was no longer prepared to censor its search results on Google.cn. The announcement followed [...]
[...] January, news emerged that hackers had launched an attack on the Gmail accounts of several Chinese human rights activists. Security experts now believe the [...]