From Dark Reading

But China could still ultimately block citizens' access

Google today made official its plans to end censorship in China, redirecting Chinese users to its uncensored search service in Hong Kong. The search giant will maintain an R&D and sales presence in mainland China, however, the company also announced.

The pullout comes more than two months after Google revealed in January that it had fallen victim to a wave of targeted attacks out of China and was rethinking its search business there, which is censored by Chinese officials. Users in China as of today are being redirected to the Hong Kong-based search service here, where Google is offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese designed for users in Mainland China, the company said.

"[The] Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've face--it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China," said David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer at Google, in a blog post this afternoon announcing Google's plans.

But Drummond acknowledged that Chinese government officials could eventually block Chinese users' access to the uncensored Hong Kong search site. "We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new Web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China," he said in his post.

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