China threatens to shut down Google, Google caves

Google says it’s committed to not censoring its search results. China is very much committed to censorship. So it’s a stalemate that affects the search ability of increasingly wired China and a huge business opportunity for Google. A few weeks ago, Google responded by simply redirecting Google.cn (China) to Google.hk (Hong Kong). But now China has threatened to not renew Google’s license to operate there. Google says it will instead offer a link to .hk on .cn and cave in and censor results. China is the largest internet market in the world, its growing fast, and Google has been shut out since that Hong Kong move. Obviously, Google is caught between it’s ideals, it’s ethics, and it’s bottom line.