Summary
A Timeline of Google China
- July 2005 – Kai-Fu Lee, a former Microsoft executive, joins Google as a global vice-president in charge of China, and announces a plan to establish a research center in China
- January 2006 – Google.cn is launched amid widespread criticism. Google agrees to block certain websites, such as those related to Falun Gong or Tian'anmen Square Crackdown, in return for being able to run a local Chinese service. The unfiltered Chinese-language Google.com remains available
- June 2006 – Google.com is again blocked in China while Google.cn continues to work
- September 2007 – Google.cn finally receives a licence from the Chinese government that officially allows it to operate its website in China – more than 18 months after it set up Google.cn
- February 2008 – Guo Quan, a Chinese human rights activist, vows to sue Yahoo and Google for excising his name from its local search results. Mr Guo writes that “to make money, Google has become a servile Pekinese dog wagging its tail at the heels of the Chinese Communists”. Guo is sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2009
- October 2008 – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sign a set of voluntary guidelines designed to reduce the risk that their actions will lead to human rights abuses in China and other countries. The document, written together with human rights advocates, calls for companies to comply with censorship only when they receive a formal legal request to do so
- January 2009 - Chinese government launches a year-long internet censorship campaign. Often citing how western countries censor web sites, the official media "Experts" assert China has its rights and responsibility to protect its people from pornographic and violent contents
- January 2009 – Chinese regulators criticise Google for making pornography available through its search engine. The propaganda branch of Chinese government launches a nation-wide campaign to paint a picture of Google as "Extremely pornographic and extremely violent". Students and parents are interviewed on Chinese TV accusing how Google has wrecked young people's life by providing links to domestic or foreign porn and violent sites even with searches for common Chinese words, like "son", "mother", etc.
- June 2009 – Chinese regulators announce that they are “punishing” Google China for failing to remove pornographic content from its search results. The punishment includes a suspension of its ability to search foreign websites and its associative-word search function – a move that drives Google users away to rival Baidu
- June 2009 – Google’s global website is blocked in China for the first time in years after the company appears to resist the order to suspend some functions. Official media accuse Google of allowing pornographic content
- June 24, 2009 – No access to Google.com, Gmail for hours
- September 2009 – Kai-Fu Lee quits following a controversial four-year tenure that has seen the company use a censored version of its search engine to gain a foothold in the world’s most populous internet market
- December 2009 – Chinese state media again accuse Google of allowing pornographic content in its search results
- January 2010 – Google says it will end censorship of its search service in China and is prepared to pull out of the market. This has gained wide support and sympathy in western countries and among many Chinese users, while Chinese official media polls indicate "the majority" of Chinese internet users support Chinese government to continue its censorship. Alibaba.com, the China-based and world's largest C2C web site, denounces its biggest share holder Yahoo for supporting Google's move.
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Stand-off between Google and China over censorship
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