If you have ever keep updated to the latest tech news about China recently, I’m sure you would know that Google China is being sued by the Chinese government. The solutions are stopping “Keyword Imagination” and “Foreign Language Searching”.
What is this case all about?
Firstly, I should state that it isn’t Google China’s fault. Some netizens found out that when they type a simple word for example “son”, several sensitive keywords will be displayed under the search bar, and these keywords may contain words related to sex. This feature is also known as Google Suggest. When the government starts to detect this issue, they had reported to CCTV. CCTV, as the central TV media of China, has exposed this problem to the public. Later, the government department asked Google China to stop the “Keyword Imagination” feature.
Why is it not Google China’s fault?
You should know that “Keyword Imagination” is based on searching actions by the Internet users, so these words are generated by machine based on the history and trends. This simply means that the tech gian should not control this to keep the search engine running on a fair basis. If the keywords contain sensitive words, that means lots of people have searched these before, therefore, Google China is not responsible for the content which may be bad for children.
Why Google China was also asked to stop foreign language searching?
I have always emphasize that China is not open enough to accept the true Internet. Actually the government wanted to stop Google from providing overseas searching long time ago, but they have no strong reasons to do so. They took the opportunity to ask Google China to stop foreign language searching due to pornographic content. This has resulted in the Chinese netizens losing the only way to connect with other countries through the Chinese website. (Baidu never provides foreign language searching)
A few weeks ago, the Chinese government has decided to purchase a software called “Lvba-Huajihuhang” which can filter the Internet content and restrict illegal accessing. Now they stopped such a useful feature of Google. Are they building China Intranet?
Now Chinese can still use http://www.google.com/ncr to search overseas. However, can you imagine that one day, the Great Firewall of China block Google International? Such case has happened before, just like cn.bing.com is allowed whereas www.bing.com has been blocked.
Do you believe that Google has actually benefited from that?
Government can do unreasonable things, but people are always true. “Lvba-Huajihuhang” cannot be accepted by people, that may affect the marketing of the development company. Although Google China is being sued, but Google China has gotten a wonderful opportunity that people would tend to believe it more. Some netizens hate the government but love Google. Fair things cannot be overwritten. Also I can see Google has also spent lots of money to do to build the good impression.
I’m sure that Google is the winner in this unfortunate situation, there will be MORE people who would trust Google.