NEWS: Google looks to pull out of China

SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc will stop censoring its search results in China and may pull out of the country completely after discovering that computer hackers had tricked human-rights activists into exposing their e-mail accounts to outsiders.

The change of heart announced on Tuesday heralds a major shift for the Internet’s search leader, which has repeatedly said it will obey Chinese laws requiring some politically and socially sensitive issues to be blocked from search results available in other countries.

This acquiescence had outraged free-speech advocates and even some shareholders, who argued Google’s co-operation with China violated the company’s “don’t be evil” motto.

The criticism had started to sway Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who openly expressed his misgivings about the company’s presence in China.

But the tipping point didn’t come until Google recently uncovered hacking attacks allegedly launched from within China. The puported goals: Breaking into the computers of at least 20 major US companies and gathering personal information about dozens of human rights activists trying to shine a light on China’s alleged abuses.

Google spokesman Matt Furman declined to say whether the company suspects the Chinese Government may have had a hand in the attacks.

Google officials plan to talk to the Chinese Government to determine if there is a way the company can still provide unfiltered search results in the country.

If an agreement can’t be worked out, Google is prepared to leave China four years after creating a search engine bearing China’s web suffix, “.cn” to put itself in a better position to profit from the world’s most populous country.

“The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences,” David Drummond, Google’s top lawyer, wrote in a blog posting yesterday.

A spokesman for the Chinese consulate in San Francisco had no immediate comment.

Not at the top

Abandoning China wouldn’t put a big dent in Google’s earnings, although it could crimp the company’s growth as the country’s Internet usage continues to rise. China’s Internet audience already has soared from 10 million to nearly 340 million in the past decade.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, said its Chinese operations account for an “immaterial” amount of its roughly US$22bil (RM75bil) in annual revenue. J.P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan had been expecting Google’s China revenue to total about US$600mil (RM2.04bil) this year.

Although Google’s search engine is the most popular worldwide, it’s a distant second in China, where the homegrown Baidu.com processes more than 60% of all requests.

Free-speech and human rights groups are hoping Google’s about-face will spur more companies to take a similar stand.

“Google has taken a bold and difficult step for Internet freedom in support of fundamental human rights,” said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil-liberties group in Washington. “No company should be forced to operate under government threat to its core values or to the rights and safety of its users.”

It’s “an incredibly significant move,” said Danny O’Brien, international outreach co-ordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet rights group in San Francisco.

“This changes the game because the question won’t be ‘How can we work in China?’ but ‘How can we create services that Chinese people can use, from outside of China?’”

Many websites based outside China, including Google’s YouTube video site, are regularly blocked by the country’s government.

Google’s new stance on China was triggered by what it described as a sophisticated computer attack orchestrated from within the country. Democratic Rep Anna Eshoo praised Google for disclosing chicanery that “raises serious national security concerns.”

IP stolen

Without providing details, Google said it and at least 20 other major companies from the Internet, financial services, technology, media and chemical industries were targeted.

The heist lifted some of Google’s intellectual property but didn’t get any information about the users of its services, the company said. Google has passed along what it knows so far to US authorities and other affected companies.

It does not appear that any US Government agencies or websites were affected by the attack, according to two US administration officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the issue.

The assault on Google appeared primarily aimed at breaking into the company’s e-mail service, Gmail, in an attempt to pry into the accounts of human right activists protesting the Chinese Government’s policies.

Only two e-mail accounts were infiltrated in these attacks, Google said, and the intruders were only able to see subject lines and the dates that the individual accounts were created. None of the content written within the body of the e-mail messages leaked out, Google said.

As part of its investigation into that incident, Google stumbled onto another scam that was more successful. Google said dozens of activists fighting the Chinese Government’s policies fell prey to ruses commonly known as “phishing” or malware. The victims live in the United States, Europe and China, Google said.

Phishing involves malicious e-mail messages urging the recipients to open an attachment or visit a link that they’re conned into believing comes from a friend or legitimate company. Clicking on a phishing link of installs malware (malicious software) on to computers.

Once it’s installed on a computer, malware can be used as a surveillance tool that can obtain passwords and unlock e-mail accounts. — AP