March 13, 2010 12:45 pm
Financial Times, “Google to shut China search engine”
by Richard Waters and Kathrin Hille
Google has drawn up detailed plans for the closure of its Chinese search engine and is now “99.9 per cent” certain to go ahead as talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent impasse, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
In a hardening of positions on both sides, the Chinese government also on Friday threw down a direct public challenge to the US search company, with a warning that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship to stop Google leaving.
The signs that Google was on the brink of closing Google.cn, its local search service in China, came two months after it promised to stop bowing to censorship there. But while a decision could be made very soon, the company is likely to take some time to follow through with the plan as it seeks an orderly closure and takes steps to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities, the person familiar with its position said.
Financial Times article continues here.
March 12, 2010 1:03 am
The Hill, “Google: We will pull out of China before accepting country’s censorship laws”
by Kim Hart
Google said it is fully prepared to shut down its China operation if that is the only way to end the country’s censorship of its networks.
“Google is firm in its decision to stop censoring in China,” said Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel, in a hearing today before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “We do not underestimate the seriousness or sensitivity of the decision is made…We are not going to change our decision.”
“If the option is that we shutter our .cn operation and leave the country, we are prepared to do that,” she said.
The Hill article continues here.
February 25, 2010 10:24 pm
Yahoo! News (Reuters), “China’s military warns Washington, denies hacking”
China’s military warned the United States on Thursday to “speak and act cautiously” to avoid reigniting tensions between the two powers, denying the People’s Liberation Army played a part in Internet hacking.
Huang Xueping, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, said his government would not reverse its decision to suspend “bilateral military plans” with Washington after it said in late January that it would sell $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
In January, the giant Internet search company Google Inc threatened to pull back from China after complaining of censorship and hacking attacks on it and other companies.
Yahoo! News (Reuters) article continues here.
February 24, 2010 9:25 pm
Fox News (AP), “Italy Convicts 3 Google Execs in Abuse Video Case”
An Italian court convicted three Google executives of privacy violations Wednesday because they did not act quickly enough to pull down a video that showed bullies abusing an autistic boy.
The case was being closely watched around the world due to its implications for Internet freedom.
In the first such criminal trial of its kind, Judge Oscar Magi sentenced the three to a six-month suspended sentence and absolved them of defamation charges. A fourth defendant, charged only with defamation, was acquitted.
Google called the decision “astonishing” and said it would appeal.
Fox News (AP) article continues here.
February 23, 2010 1:48 pm
The Hill, “Beijing blasts Google claims as ‘groundless’”
by Tony Romm
China fired back at Google on Tuesday, describing assertions that the country was involved in a massive cyberattack as “groundless.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang stressed his country remained “opposed” to Google’s conclusions about last month’s attack, which targeted U.S. businesses’ trade secrets, human-rights workers in China and the search-engine giant itself.
“Reports that these attacks came from Chinese schools are totally groundless and the accusation of Chinese government involvement is also irresponsible and driven by ulterior motives,” the Chinese spokesman said.
“China administers its Internet according to law, and this position will not change. China prohibits hacking and will crack down on hacking according to law,” Qin said.
The Hill article continues here.
February 17, 2010 10:56 am
Times Online, “Google forced into Buzz revamp over privacy row”
by Murad Ahmed
Google has been forced into a hasty revamp of its social networking service Buzz after the new feature was met with a storm of criticism because of gaping privacy flaws.
The company today announced it will introduce a prominent “kill button” that will allow people to turn off Buzz altogether.
Central to the row is a feature that automatically enrolled Gmail users to the service but also revealed the identities of the people they e-mailed most frequently. The blunder was met with a torrent of complaints, including one woman who said that an abusive ex-husband could now follow her every move.
Google has now apologised, announcing it will fix Buzz so that Gmail users can now choose who they want as their “friends” under the system. Sources at the company said today that the new changes will be implemented in “the next couple of days”.
Times Online article continues here.
February 11, 2010 11:59 am
The Wall Street Journal, “Iran to Suspend Google’s Email”
by Chip Cummins and Jessica E. Vascellaro
Iran’s telecommunications agency announced what it described as a permanent suspension of Google Inc.’s email services, saying a national email service for Iranian citizens would soon be rolled out.
It wasn’t clear late Wednesday what effect the order had on Gmail services in Iran, or even if Iran had implemented its new policy. Iranian officials have claimed technological advances in the past that they haven’t been able to execute.
A Google spokesman said in a statement, “We have heard from users in Iran that they are having trouble accessing Gmail. We can confirm a sharp drop in traffic, and we have looked at our own networks and found that they are working properly. Whenever we encounter blocks in our services we try to resolve them as quickly as possibly because we strongly believe that people everywhere should have the ability to communicate freely online.”
An Iranian official said the move was meant to boost local development of Internet technology and to build trust between people and the government.
The Wall Street Journal article continues here.
February 9, 2010 9:25 pm
Financial Times, “Google prepares Facebook assault”
by Richard Waters
Google is set to make a fresh attempt to gain a stronger foothold in the booming social networking business on Tuesday as it seeks to counter the growing threat that Facebook poses to some of its core services.
The search company is preparing to announce new features for Gmail that would extend the capabilities of the internet-based e-mail service to mirror some aspects of the fast-growing social networking site, according to a person familiar with its plans.
However, earlier Google efforts to establish a presence in social networking have failed to gain much traction and analysts said that the company was still likely to find it difficult to turn the tables on Facebook with its latest plan.
Financial Times article continues here.
February 4, 2010 1:01 pm
The Washignton Post, “Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks”
by Ellen Nakashima
The world’s largest Internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance organization are teaming up in the name of cybersecurity.
Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.
Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.
The Washignton Post article continues here.
February 1, 2010 10:47 pm
Wired, “Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs”
by John C. Abell
After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.
This time, the big topics included Google and Adobe — no surprises there. Google recently unveiled its own Android-powered handset, the Nexus One, whose release Jan. 5 prompted Jobs to perhaps over-react by announcing on the same day that the iTunes store had served up three billion apps and that “… we see no signs of the competition catching up any time soon.” Apple’s billionth iPhone app download was greeted with great fanfare, but the two billionth not so much, so it felt a tad like Jobs was feeling some heat.
And the absence of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone for three years and counting, and now on the iPad, is either celebrated by users as a poke in the eye of one of the web’s most dextrous tools, or the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.
Wired article continues here.
January 12, 2010 11:30 pm
The Washington Post, “Google may pull out of China over cyber attacks”
by Ellen Nakashima
The company said it had evidence to suggest that “a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts” of Chinese human rights activists. The attack was discovered in December.
David Drummond, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer, added that the attacks “have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China.”
Google has further decided it is no longer willing to continue censoring its search results in Chinese Google sites, Drummond said, and over the next few weeks it will discuss with the Beijing government how it may operate “an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” he said.
The Washington Post article continues here.
January 10, 2010 3:47 am
The New York Times, “Google Applies to Become Power Marketer”
by Miguel Helft
Google is stepping up its forays into the energy world.
The Internet search company, which consumes vast amounts of electricity to run the computers in its data centers, created a subsidiary last month called Google Energy. It then applied for approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be allowed to buy and sell power much like utilities do.
Google said it did not have specific plans to become an energy trader and that its primary goal was to gain flexibility for buying more renewable energy for its power-hungry data centers.
“We want to have the ability to procure renewable energy to offset power usage of our operations,” said Niki Fenwick, a Google spokeswoman. Ms. Fenwick said that having access to more renewable energy could help the company fulfill its goal to become “carbon neutral.”
The New York Times article continues here.
