Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Mar312010

Posted By
Glen

Fact or Fiction IV: March Madness

Welcome back one and all to the March edition of Fact or Fiction. Those of you who read either of the last three will know, every edition I will have a guest and we will discuss a few of the big issues in China of the day. Every answer will have a “Fact” or a “Fiction” and some justification to go along with it.

Today my guest is fellow Laowai blogger Matt. He is the resident Kunminger (that is a word, right?), and his most recent intelligent posts have been about learning and teaching Chinese, as well as cooking and alcoholism. Also, he keeps his own personal blog, Matt Schiavenza – A China Journal, which is a worthy addition to your Google Reader, whenever it’s not blocked. Today we’re doing a bit of a topic potpourri, discussing Google, prostitution, and the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the National People’s Congress.

o join us for Fact or Fiction 4: March Madness~!!!

Mar232010

14Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Google.cn moves to HK, guess it wasn’t just about the money

Google HK If you’ve somehow missed the news, Google.cn has officially exited China, sort of. Instead of pulling out of the country completely, they’ve moved the search division of their business to Hong Kong, which is free of the political censorship rules that the Mainland’s internet is subject to.

Now when visiting google.cn, visitors are automatically redirected to Google.com.hk, which now features Simplified Chinese options and search abilities (perhaps it always did?). And while search results are no longer self-censored by the search company, they are now subject to the daft diligence of the Great Firewall of China. Searching for terms deemed too sensitive for your own good will return the “connection has been reset” error that we’ve all come to love.

Feb262010

1Comment

Posted By
Ryan

Video: Sergey Brin speaks about Google’s China decision

Here’s a great video recorded at TED2010 earlier this month in which TED curator Chris Anderson talks to Google co-founder Sergey Brin about the company’s recent statements about their China operations. You can read the whole transcript of the talk here.

Apologies for the far right-side of the video being cut off. It shouldn’t affect functionality of the embedded video and is only a minor amount of the actual video. Also, the video plays well in full-screen.

Jan242010

7Comments

Posted By
Jarrod

Google and the Illegal Flower Tribute

At this point, everyone knows about Google’s decision to channel Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” and more or less say “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” when it comes to complying with China’s internet censorship laws. In its January 12 blog post, Google stated that the company does in fact recognize [...]

Jan192010

11Comments

Posted By
Glen

Fact or Fiction II: Electric Googaloo!

Welcome back to Fact or Fiction. In case you missed it last time, it is an (ir)regular feature here on Lost Laowai. Every edition I will have a guest and we will discuss a few of the big issues in China of the day. Every answer will have a “Fact” or a “Fiction” and some justification to go along with it.

Today, like much of the blogosphere we will be talking about the Google vs. GFW debate. Which makes my guest, Steven, the perfect counterpart. The current resident of Suzhou, writes here at Lost Laowai and most of his posts have a technological theme. He is also the sole China blogger for CNET Asia with his blog Sinobytes.

So without further ado, let’s get down to Fact or Fiction 2: Electric Googaloo!!!

Jan132010

14Comments

Posted By
Steven

Google threatens to pull plug on Google.cn

Well-wishers leave flowers at Google China HQ earlier today

Google has announced that it might soon pull the plug on its operations in China, citing grave concerns over some recent, bizarre hack attacks, and lack of freedom of speech.

The official notice on the main Google blog reveals that a concerted hacking attack, which originated in China, has been using phishing and malware to access the accounts of human rights activists.

In the statement, the Chief Legal Officer of Google, David Drummond, detailed the attacks in full. It was not stated explicitly, but I read in the implication that these concerted attempts to get into the Gmail inboxes and Google accounts of these human rights activists was actually government sponsored.

In addition, Mr. Drummond called-out “the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web” in China, but did not name any sites in particular, not even mentioning its own sites which are blocked

Oct152009

33Comments

Posted By
Steven

The Great Firewall: longer, higher, meaner

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more: all blocked in China

The already unfortunate situation of internet censorship in China – imposed by the so-called Great Firewall – has been slowly getting worse this year, making a mockery of claims that the Olympics would open up China in terms of allowing a greater spread of communication and discussion. This year the Great Firewall has metamorphosed from a paranoid bug into a malignant disease, a raging cancer, blighting creativity, free speech and the flow of ideas.

Just a few months ago I posted here on Lost Laowai about China’s massive web-filtering system, and how it was becoming distinctly anti-social in that it was targeting social-networking and web 2.0 sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, which are characterised by allowing a fast flow of information and ideas.

Bad news: that’s getting worse, and this time there’s no identifiable reason.

Jun212009

16Comments

Posted By
Steven

Is Google Being Evil in China?

The Chinese government notoriously dislikes any organisation, particularly a foreign one, communicating directly to its people – so it’s little wonder that the story of Google in China has been one of jumping through fiery hoops. This week Google has been under attack in China over internet pornography, especially with regards its ‘search suggestions’ drop-down [...]