Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Talks between Beijing and the U.S. technology giant Google are continuing, after the company threatened to abandon the Chinese market over censorship and unknown hacker attacks against its confidential databases. This was confirmed by Li Yizhong, Minister of Industry and Information Technology.
On January 12, Google reported cyber attacks from China to access to its confidential information and that similar attacks have been sustained by more than 20 other companies operating in China. It also criticized the censorship imposed by Beijing on some topics deemed sensitive, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989. It announced that it would no longer tolerate such censorship and was seriously considering the possibility of leaving the Chinese market.
However the company did not indicate precise dates, although yesterday Nicole Wong, Deputy General Director of the Company, confirmed "a reconsideration of our business activities" is in progress. Wong confirmed the "firm decision" to "not accept Chinese censorship for Internet searches". She added that the decision to leave China "would be carefully evaluated," given the many employees Google has in the country. In a note presented to the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wong added that Google's services have been censored in 25 states in recent years and that its platform Blogger, and Blogspot were locked in at least 7 countries in the past 2 years: China, India, Spain, Pakistan, Iran, Myanmar, Ethiopia.
The controversy intensified at the end of February, when Western media indicated that the attacks came from two schools in China and that a hacker was identified as a government consultant for information security.
In turn, China always rejected as "unfounded" any allegations of attacks by Chinese hackers.