Google&#39;s China Filtering Draws Fire
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&quot;China is censoring Google News to force Internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports,&quot; said a statement from Reporters Without Borders.
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The great firewall of China often fails to block banned words finds a US study of its effectiveness.
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While much ire in the fight against net censorship and free speech restrictions falls squarely at the feet of the Chinese government, a new law in Zimbabwe should raise some eyebrows.
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Internet giant Google was accused Monday of misleading web users and misidentifying sponsored links in a court case brought by Australia&#39;s consumer watchdog.
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Google responds to attacks on its privacy record.
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Google Inc.'s recently launched news service in China doesn't display results from Web sites blocked by that country's authorities, raising prickly questions for an online search engine that has famously promised to "do no evil."
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Last week in China, A Lot of Baidu and a bit of Microsoft and Google There hardly goes a week by that Baidu is not in the news. They are actively getting into new partnerships, boasting about their Market Share and releasing new services. Google has yet to find a way to counter this. The rest [...]
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Just in time for Halloween, Google&#39;s YouTube became available again in China Wednesday, two weeks after it was blocked.Although Chinese Internet regulators don&#39;t comment on why sites are blocked,&#160;YouTube&#39;s blocking&#160;seemed to be tied one or two events: the 17th Communist Party Congress, the Chinese Communist Party&#39;s most important meeting, held every five years; and the launching of YouTube&#39;s traditional language site in Taiwan, both during the same week in the middle of this month. The YouTube Taiwan site is also available in China.However, while YouTube can be viewed again, Blogspot is once again unavailable, one of several sites that see-saw between being allowed or prohibited. Although attempts to reach Blogspot&#39;s homepage rerouted to Blogger.com&#39;s simplified Chinese homepage, neither Blogspot owner Google&#39;s official blog nor the infamous Chinabounder blog -- which features the sexual exploits and political rantings of a foreign English teacher in Shanghai -- could be reached.Blocked throughout the recent changes&#160;is the English-language site of Wikipedia. Its Chinese-language site is&#160;almost always unavailable&#160;here.China regularly blocks access to Web sites that it finds objectionable, including those dealing with politically sensitive subjects such as the Falun Gong religious cult and independence for Taiwan and Tibet, along with some pornographic sites.&#160;
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Google Inc.  has won  preliminary approval from Beijing to provide Internet content  in China, the firm said on Wednesday, potentially allowing it  to offer news in the world&#39;s second-largest Internet market.
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(InfoWorld) - When it comes to protecting the privacy of its users, Google ranks worse than any other Internet company, according to an interim report by Privacy International. The international watchdog group also accused Google of engaging in a smear campaign in response to its findings and demanded an apology. Privacy International's findings, based on six months of research, placed Google at the bottom of 23 Internet companies examined by the group. Google was the only company to earn the bottom ranking for "comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy." Other companies, such as Microsoft and Yahoo, rated slightly better that Google. Microsoft was given a rating of four out of six for "serious lapses in privacy practices." Yahoo was given a ranking of five of six, one better than Google, for "substantial and comprehensive privacy threats." "We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research, we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations," Privacy International said. In particular, the group cited the large amount of data that Google collects about its users and lack of privacy controls. "Google's increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook," Privacy International said. "Neither of these elements has been demonstrated." Privacy International plans to issue a final report in September. Google executives were not immediately available to comment on the report's findings. But an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Privacy International Director Simon Davies accused the company of engaging in a smear campaign in response to the group's findings. "Two European journalists have independently told us that Google representatives have contacted them with the claim that 'Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding Microsoft.' I presume this was motivated because Microsoft scored an overall better result than Google in the rankings," Davies wrote. Google allegedly claimed a conflict of interest exist because one of 70 people on Privacy International's board of advisors is a current Microsoft employee. Davies rejected the charge and listed five critical actions the group has taken against Microsoft, including support for the European Commission's investigation into Microsoft. "Can I be so bold as to suggest that your company's actions stem from sour grapes that you achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants?" Davies wrote, demanding an apology from Schmidt. This isn't the first time that Privacy International has raised privacy concerns about Google. In 2004, the group filed a privacy complaint over Google's Gmail service with regulators in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Australia, and Canada, as well as with the European Commission. To date, Google has rejected concerns over the information it gathers and stores about users. Speaking recently in South Korea, Schmidt dismissed privacy concerns over the data collected by the company, saying users worried about privacy can always choose not to use the company's services. He also said Google deletes information about users after a certain period of time but did not say how long that period is. Privacy concerns about Google have also been raised overÂ the company's acquisition of DoubleClick, sparking anÂ investigation by the U.S. Fair Trade Commission (FTC). That investigation is ongoing. While Google has taken flack from critics for its privacy policies, the company has acted to protect users in at least one case: In January 2006, Google was the only company to resist a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoena for a random sampling of 1 million Web addresses that users searched for. AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo did not fight the DOJ's request, which did not seek information that would have identified the users who made the search requests contained in the sample. Ultimately, Google shared a smaller amount of data with the DOJ.
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Organic The Australian competition watchdog has accused Google of "misleading and deceptive conduct".â¦
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SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc&#39;s recently launched news service in China doesn&#39;t display results from websites blocked by that country&#39;s authorities, raising prickly questions for an online search engine that has famously promised to &quot;do no evil.
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(InfoWorld) - Google will do better in China, but don't look for the company to dominate the market anytime soon, the company's top executive said Thursday. "Although it does not appear we are number one in the market, it looks like we are now in a situation where we are quite competitive," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, told investors during a conference call. Google hasÂ invested heavily in China,Â setting up R&D centersÂ and developing aÂ search engine that censorsÂ results that government officials aren't likely to approve of. But despite Google's best efforts and the hiring of former Microsoft executiveÂ Kai-fu LeeÂ to lead its Chinese operations, the company trails far behind local rival Baidu.com. Google is the sixth most-visited Web site in China, with 4.4 percent of respondents choosing the search engine as the site they visit most often, according to an IDC survey released earlier this year. By comparison, Baidu ranked third, with 11.2 percent of respondents saying they visit the Chinese search engine more than any other site. Baidu also has a strong lead over Google in China's online advertising market, with a 16.5 percent share of the market in 2006, IDC said. Baidu earned US$105.2 million from online ads in 2006, making it the number two player in the market behind Sina, which runs China's top Internet portal. Google China ranked sixth in the country's online advertising market, with revenue of $38.7 million and a 6.1 percent share of the market, IDC said. Despite trailing behind its main rival, Google is upbeat about its prospects in China. Speaking to investors on Thursday, Google CFO George Reyes said the company's growth rate in China was "healthy." Schmidt said Google has a strong team in China and offers Chinese search capabilities that match or exceed those from rivals. "It's a very good start and although we don't think that this will result in an immediate huge success, we think that the tenacity of Google ... will bring significant victories in China over the next few years," he said.
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SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s recently launched news service in China doesn't display results from Web sites blocked by that country's authorities, raising prickly questions for an online search engine that has famously promised to "do no evil."   Dynamic Internet Technology Inc., a research firm striving to defeat online censorship, conducted tests that found Google omits results from the government-banned sites if search requests are made through computers connecting to the Internet in China.    Steered by an identical search request, computers with a United States connection retrieved results from the sites blocked by China...
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Google and SINA team up in a Chinese search partnership.
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Web surfers from Beijing to Berkeley have made Google their search engine of choice, but some of Europe&#39;s institutional investors have gone sour on the dot-com on the eve of its ...
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By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER WASHINGTON - Once relatively indifferent to government affairs, Google Inc. is seeking help inside the Beltway to fight the rise of Web censorship worldwide. The online search giant is taking a novel approach to the problem by asking U.S.