Google vs. China: have the gloves come off?
Yesterday, Google announced a new policy towards China. Apparently, the gist of the matter is that the company is no longer willing to make business with China in the same fashion (content blocking and censoring) if its cyberspies (according to Google, the attacks originated from China) do not leave the search engine’s intellectual property alone. What is more, the Chinese attack was widespread and targeted, among other objectives, personal information of Chinese human rights activists («a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists«).
The double standard of the country’s policy is well known: forbidding any external interference in its information policies and covertly acquiring valuable information through non-traditional channels and using every weapon on the cyber-arsenal to do it. This means that the country blocks free information, but actively seeks to get their hands on protected and valuable data, which might cause several international incidents if it came from anyone else. The use of such technologies to acquire trade and personal information is not new nor indeed limited to China, but the gloves are off in what may be considered the cyber-incident of the year.
On the other hand, if Google actually pulls the plug on Google.cn – that is, if this announcement means business – it signals the end of a long cooperation between the search engine and Internet censorship authorities in China.
Filed under: cyberwarfare, opinion, politics, Research | 1 Comment
Tags: China, google
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