

google.cn now redirects to google.com.hk - keyist
http://google.cn

======
pavs
China service availability Status:
<http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en>

A new approach to China: an update:
[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-
china...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/new-approach-to-china-
update.html)

~~~
garply
Both of those urls are blocked to me ("Connection was reset").

~~~
Groxx
Status page as of "now":
<http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/5748/screenshot01u.png>

Text content of the blog post (sans links):

On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty
other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack
originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks
we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of
human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by
third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their
computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they
uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free
speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such
as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude
that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search,
Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now
being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in
simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and
delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to
receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from
Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the
complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or
find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on
Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to
have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the
Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that
self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new
approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from
Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's
entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people
in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision,
though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our
services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have
created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that
everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work
in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the
sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland
Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear
that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in
the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be
held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they
have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to
focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of
them.

~~~
garply
Thanks for the text, but I have a US proxy.

Btw, imageshack is blocked too.

~~~
noaccount
挖哈哈，天朝威武

~~~
baby
什么意思=D?

------
WingForward
A re-direct to www.google.com.tw would have been interesting.

------
garply
I'm curious how long I'll be able to access google.com.hk from my Beijing
apartment.

~~~
tshtf
I'm not sure if this is new, but Google has a page with availability details
from China:

<http://www.google.com/prc/report.html#hl=en>

------
toisanji
What that means is that people in China will still not be able to see
unfiltered results as the Chinese Hong Kong version is blocked from the
mainland. Google Hong Kong is uncensored just like most of the world.

~~~
garply
No, it's not blocked (yet) - but queries with certain keywords are being
filtered as they always have. It appears the keyword filtering is now more
severe, as I've mentioned elsewhere.

~~~
Herring
Why isn't everyone encrypting everything?

~~~
roundsquare
Really? As if most people even know then can, and if they do, they know how?

Always good to remember that non-techies don't even know what options are
available much less how to make use of them.

Aside from that, I'd wonder if in China they are worried about getting caught
and getting in trouble with the government.

~~~
Herring
Yeah cryptography is hard for users.. I was wondering why companies (eg
google) don't use https everywhere.

~~~
olefoo
Because it costs money. An https connection requires an order of magnitude
more resources to set up and maintain than a plain old http connection.

Even with hardware acceleration it takes more electricity per connection, and
dedicated SSL accelerator boxes are not cheap (a pair of load-balancers with
SSL acceleration will cost more than a new car).

When you're operating at the scale of Google, that can add up quickly.

------
richardw
My guess is that negotiations have produced this result: the Chinese
government is going to (at some point) filter the results themselves, which
lets both parties save face and lets Google continue basic business functions
in China.

------
tshtf
Results appear to be uncensored on the hk site:

[http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-
CN&source=hp&q...](http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-
CN&source=hp&q=tiananmen+square)

~~~
garply
[http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-
CN&safe=strict&...](http://www.google.com.hk/search?hl=zh-
CN&safe=strict&q=天安门+1989&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=)

is now filtered for me (it wasn't a few days ago), but by my ISP, not by
Google.

~~~
eob
What happens when your ISP filters it? Do you see a "Connection Reset" page,
or do they actually modify the HTML returned?

~~~
garply
Connection reset... same as I get with blogspot, wordpress, facebook, twitter,
etc.

------
sigzero
That is awesome. www.google.com.tw would have been better.

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noaccount
Here is a screenshot: <http://www.laigaogao.cn/index.php/archives/3367>

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jpablo
China blocking google.com.tw for everyone not in Taiwan in 3, 2, 1 ...

