From Computer World

Ten days after Google snubbed Chinese government censors by moving its search engine there to Hong Kong, its Web search service remains unblocked in China. But the move could yet cost Google substantial business, and already offering services to Chinese users from outside of the country has proved an imperfect counter to government censorship.

"I'm not surprised that it hasn't been blocked," said Duncan Clark, chairman of technology consultancy BDA. "Both sides probably don't want the thing to rumble on in any high-profile way."

But the impact of Google's move on its business could grow as time passes. China could still choose to block Google.com or Google.com.hk, the company's Hong Kong site, and Google will have to work to retain Chinese customers paying for ads on international Google sites.

"If it's slow, that's almost worse than being blocked," said Clark. "Advertisers hate uncertainty."

Google began redirecting users to its Hong Kong site from its old China-based search engine, Google.cn, during the early morning in China on March 23. China was quick to slam the move as "totally wrong," but it has not blocked access to the Hong Kong site as users feared and as Google warned was possible. [More...] [Comments...]