Google Plans To Uncensor China Are Themselves Censored

Google's plans for China may have made headlines across the west, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it a non-issue in China itself.  That's more because of the actions of the Chinese government and media, however, rather than any ill-feeling toward the search giant from the Chinese people themselves; according to the NYT initial stories in the country that discussed Google's decision to end filtering results have since been squashed, and news agencies have cautiously excised any mention of "free speech" or "surveillance" that Google made.

Google announced earlier that they would be no longer willing to filter search results for their Google.cn Chinese-localised page, after discovering that various online attacks experienced recently specifically sought access to the email accounts of known Chinese human rights activists as opposed to more general access.  The company also claims that it was one of around 34 targets in total; Adobe have already confirmed that they were a target themselves.

While Google state they will be looking to work with the Chinese government to create an uncensored search service that operates within the law, the consensus already seems to be that a withdrawal is inevitable.  Results for searches such as "Tiananmen Square massacre" and "Dalai Lama" are currently blocked, and more recently YouTube has been closed off to Chinese browsers.