Google China Attack: Google Considers Google.cn Shutdown

Photos

Google China landing page

see larger image

uploaded by Jordan Yerman

Following an attack on Google China, during which the perpetrators tried to hack into the email accounts of Chinese, European and American human rights activists, Google is considering shutting down its operations in China. David Drummond, Google's Chief Legal Officer, stated that, while no email accounts were successfully hacked, the Google China attack constituted a theft of intellectual property and a disturbing instance of cross-industry online espionage.

Drummond went on to say that Google is no longer willing to run a censored version of their search and web services on Google.cn.

It's highly unlikely that the Chinese government would even consider an uncensored version of Google, so the search giant would have to be prepared to make good on its threat. Trafficwise, this wouldn't be the end of the world for Google, which only has around 14% of China's search traffic, and China-based revenue is about 2% of Google's estimated 2010 total.