Google / China Conflict

In 2005 Google China was launched. That might seem normal, just Google opening a new branch overseas, but China was a special case for two reasons. First, China has 400 million internet users, (The U.S.A. has a population of around 314 million people, total.) so Google wanted a slice of the market share there. Second, China has very strict internet censorship laws that conflict with Google's policy of freedom of information.

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The Chinese government has justified it's internet censorship policy, also known as "The Great Firewall of China", as protecting minors from pornography and other explicit content, but it also blocks out content that would the Chinese government would consider subversive, such as the Tienanmen square protests or Tibet separatism.

When Google launched Google China, they did censor their search results in accordance with Chinese law, along . Google only released Blogger and Gmail in China after the Chinese government agreed that they would not be able to view the confidential information of their clients.

In January 2010 a hacking attempt was made on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. The attempt was only partiality successful, as only the subject lines of some emails were taken. Google responded by blaming the Chinese government for the hacking attempt, demanding they change their censorship policy, and briefly gave uncensored search results before switching back to censored search results without explanation. The Chinese government denied any involvement to the hacking attempts, and refused to change any policies.