Search giant under the spotlight in China

GOOGLE   BAIDU    SEARCH

Beijing - Chinese users on micro-blogging services such as Twitter and Fanfou were outraged last night cursing the "Great Firewall" as authorities continued to block Google in China.

Earlier in the week, Google was singled out by Chinese regulators in the country's latest censorship scandal over the availability of pornographic content, which critics argue is part of the authorities' efforts to block political content.

But should search engines be held accountable for the content that show up from its search results?

David Wolf, chief executive for Wolf Group Asia, said Chinese authorities clamps down on the results of search engines is proving to be a serious issue for business development. 

Wolf criticised foreign search engines that comply and operate according to China's laws, arguing that the laws sit outside human rights code.

How consistent and transparent are search companies such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in communicating their presence in China in terms of being only interested in the pursuit of profit or entering the market with an intention of improving the country? 

Wolf argued foreign search companies are not forward thinking and anticipating these issues.

"These executives are just sitting in their boardrooms in the Bay Area but not seeing the issue from outside."

He said there should be clear attachment between what they are doing in China and the principles in which they operate their business. 

Wolf suggested that foreign search companies such as Google form an alliance with local arch rivals Baidu to make a stand with the government that content and results are separate things, which they can't be held accountable for - along the line of "we are messengers, don't kill us for the message". 

Unless the foreign and local search companies are coming together to defend their case, he added that the Chinese government will continue to "play divide and conquer where no one will win".

In an official statement from Google, it said that the search giant has been working to remove pornography from their search results in China, in accordance with their operating license there.

"This has been a major engineering effort, and we believe we have addressed many of the problems identified by the Government," the statement said.

Actions taken include temporarily disabled the Google Suggest feature on Google.cn and redesigned its home page to remove the radio buttons that offer language and locale options.

Marketing has also approached executives from Microsoft's latest search engine Bing as well as Yahoo for comments, but the companies have not come back with a response at press time. 

Ahead of 1 July, the day commemorating the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from UK to China, critics argue Chinese authorities will continue to launch a full-fledged assault to control and censor in digital space. 

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