Google Leaving China In April?

Google leaving China in April tops the headlines of internet related blogs today. While there has been no official confirmation from Google, a lot of speculations have been going around the blogosphere. Apparently, the suspected exit of Google is due to China’s restrictions and censorship imposed on all search engines like Google. These restrictions and censorship requirements contradict Google’s objectives and complicates the entire process of rendering quality search results.

“I have received information that Google will leave China on the 10th of April, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google,” an unnamed spokesman was reported as saying.

At the beginning of this year, Google reported that it is no longer prepared to comply with the censorship required by the Chinese authorities after the series of cyber-attacks on several of its online properties. Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO was hopeful that the Chinese government allow them to operate in the country without having to filter the search result it provides to its users. Knowing the Chinese government however, this is thought to be almost impossible.

Several websites including FaceBook, YouTube and a number of popular websites have been blocked by the Great Fire Wall after they failed to meet China’s requirements. The notorious Great Firewall of China is the government’s hand in implementing censorship in the web and it gets a large budget allocation from the Chinese government. It employs thousands of the best IT professionals in China to make sure nothing goes out of the radar. Most of the websites filtered or blocked are those that talks ill of China and its government.

While it’s clear that Google’s exit of China could mean losing millions of revenue, it is unclear what the effect of a Google pullout would have on the services which millions of people in China use on a daily basis.