Google to show China what it's missing

Google could be set for another tense showdown with the Chinese government after changing its search experience for users in the People’s Republic in a way that will explicitly notify them when their searches are being blocked by the authorities. Senior vice president of knowledge, Alan Eustace, announced the changes in a blog …

[LarsG]

This is sure to get up the nose of the Chinese authorities.......

I all for it.

[Eugene Crosser]

SSL

Any reason Google cannot switch the searches to SSL? The authorities would not be able to intercept the queries then, unless they do wholesale MITM. (And the latter would raise enough eyebrows in the business world for then to think twice before trying.)

[Mike Bell]

Re: SSL

The Chinese authorities would be more than happy to block all SSL connections to Google, I'm sure.

[Benjamin 4]

Re: SSL

Google has the money. Why not start playing whack-a-mole like TPB?

[The BigYin]

Re: SSL

Because in the glorious people's China, censorship whacks you!

[frank ly]

Is Android 'worth much' in China?

".. its Android platform is in a market leading position there, .."

Android is open source and the phone makers and service providers stuff it and layer it with their own sauce and can even determine which apps market is used. The service providers control routing to external services and the government add internet restrictions on top of that. I don't see how a local variant of Android being popular in China has much benefit to Google; apart from kudos, but only among those Chinese who know and understand the situation.

[Usually Right or Wrong]

Good for Blighty as well

When they step up the censorship here, Google can implement the same technology so that we can work out what is being blocked, because the government sure as hell won't tell us.

[g e]

Dish it!

So, the keyword list please, Google.

Come along now. Chop-chop!

[g e]

On second thoughts I think I know most of them

Fun

Fairness

Freedom

Amercia

[Winkypop]

Just buying some time

These beloved leaders* will fall one day.

And it'll be the "net" in some format that will get them.

* Translation: Arseholes

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just buying some time

I assume your talking about our leaders?

We are in desperate need of new leaders and a new way of thinking, but with the sheep voting for the political parties we have, I am not hopeful

[Steven Roper]

And pray tell

If not the main oligarchy of Labour and Conservative / Labor and Liberal / Republican and Democrat, who would you have people vote for? The Greens, who would have us all heading back to the caves as hunter-gatherers? The BNP / Australia First / National Front, who would hang anyone with non-white ancestry? Or one of the many single-issue parties like the Sex Party or the Pirate Party, who would focus on their single point of interest to the detriment of the rest of the structure of civilisation?

People aren't sheep. They just don't have anyone worthwhile to vote for. If a party came along and offered a balanced perspective whereby the needs and well-being of the public is respected as opposed to the crony corporatism we are burdened with today, we'd be onto a winner. But sadly, there is nobody like that - in any country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship should be transparent - if something is blocked at least tell me why, not some 'unable to connect' or 'page not found' message. There should also be a link to report that the item should not be blocked after all.

What happens with links on the UK IWF banned list?

[Alyas]

The Chinese government is happy for the Internet to be open when it is Chinese hackers breaking into the sites of foreign companies and governments, and it is happy to allow its researchers access to all the free technical knowledge provided by western companies and educational institutions, but they shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways. If western websites used by Chinese companies and universities started rejecting all requests from any Chinese IP addresses, I'm sure the Chinese government would be outraged. But as much as I'd like to see them get a taste of their own medicine, it is probably better to just let the Chinese people poke holes in the Great Firewall.

[Claus P. Nielsen]

Prescient much?

"... just a few days before the bloody anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989"

Lets hope that the anniversary turns out to be bloodless - unlike the original event.

[Anonymous Coward]

The view from this side of the Great Firewall

Using Google in China is hit and miss anyway with even innocent searches blocked whilst the same search on Bing or Baidu works perfectly.

Also the Android marketplace is blocked so I can't see how google makes any money out of Android here.

All in all I think Google have may think they have very little to lose so they might as well go for it but they run the risk of being blocked completely like facebook, twitter, youtube. The Chinese authorities are getting more and more confident and care less and less what 'foreign devils' say about them. Given the recent wave of anti-foreigner sentiments here due to a viral video of a British man sexually assaulting a chinese woman: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9257261/British-tourist-arrested-in-China-for-sexual-assault.html I think that banning Google might even be popular with the majority of the Chinese public.

The Chinese authorities have been able to disrupt PPTP / L2TP VPNs for quite a while and now can and do disrupt Open VPN traffic as well. Additionally, China also 'tested' it's ability to completely block all foreign internet traffic in April (as reported in the Daily Telegraph and here: in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/12/china-internet-users-foreign-websites). Expect this technology to be deployed during the next change in leadership or when some smelly stuff hits the fan etc.

Anonymous for obvious reasons...