Google will start warning Chinese users about problematic search terms
insidesearch.blogspot.com
insidesearch.blogspot.com
There are a ton of technical ways Google could silently defend against this particular form of censorship (someone suggested reencoding the offending characters), thus starting a cat-and-mouse game with the censors. But that would (1) be an "act of war" in terms of blatantly attempting to pierce China's Great Firewall, giving China an incentive just to block Google wholesale; (2) not inform people that their searches were being censored; and (3) be a lot of work, with no likelihood that they could ever keep searches uncensored for very long.
By playing totally dumb, and saying "huh, we've noticed some kind of technical problem with your search, try phrasing it a different way," Google (1) takes no overt action to evade the censorship; yet (2) lets everyone know it's happening and subtly encourages them to try to evade it themselves; and (3) sets up a system that sees any censorship as damage and routes around it, which hopefully is an approach that's relatively difficult to counter without blocking the whole site, and is how the internet ought to work anyway.
In conclusion: from the little I know of what's going on here, this is a seriously clever move. Interested to see how China responds.
In China, that is actually the usual way to get around the law.
This is not very new or innovative, it's pretty standard actually.
When I suggested this a few years ago and criticized Google's decision to un-censor the results, all my comments were brutally modded down.
It seems that Google has finally seen the wisdom of this approach. The next move for China is to ban Google completely, which is sadly much easier now that Baidu has had a few more years to gain traction and market share.
You're mistaken here. Baidu had the lion's share of the search market in China when Google decided to leave. Baidu even mocked Google's ineffectiveness with some viral videos.
Google's interest in China's political system is part of its marketing campaign, not actually designed to foster political dissent in China.
I'm not sure how their decision went, but I assume that they did their research first to see if their changes would really drop their marketplace share too much. I'm not sure if China will block Google... if they do I don't think it would be much different than Google censuring their own results (the censored content would not be accessible). When people try to go to Google they would notice it's censored too.
But by un-censoring the results Google removed the information about what was actually being censored, which is actually more available than the censored content itself (which, if it has any value, is likely readily available if you know what you are looking for).
PS: Don't believe me? in a country with 457 million Internet users... Baidu currently has a 75.8 share of China's search engine market, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. Google is a distant second with a 19.2 percent share. And with that 75% share Baidu, had a net profits for the quarter ended March 31 were US$164 million. Compared to Google's $10,645 million last quarter. (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/226507/chinas_...)
There was some rumors a few weeks ago that he had died. China is currently in a transition of power from one to the next president (there have only been two such transitions so far, and there is no established legal process for it yet). Jiang Zeming is seen as a stabalizing factor during that process.
So, having rumors floating around that he died, would be potentially risky to stability (because people very easily believe stuff and easily get nuts about totally unfounded news, because you never know what to believe and what not if there is no independend press).
Not a few weeks ago though; appears to be from nearly 10 months back.
If it's only GET, then a user can use POST to search and bypass all this entirely - Google just has to change the request type, which IMHO is much easier than what they just did.
If it's both GET and POST, then I don't see how typing in the infringing character which is then POST'd via AJAX is any less prone to connection termination than a GET search request.
It doesn't add up.
EDIT: downvotes? Seriously?
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Peop...
Methods
* IP Blocking
* DNS Filtering
* URL Filtering
* Packet Filtering ( TCP, FTP, POP, SMTP, ETC)
* Connection resets of up to 30 minutes
Try this: http://search.china.alibaba.com -> Search for "Falun Dafa", you'll be cutoff for about 5 minutes or so completely. That includes not just GET, POST, BUT ALL TCP/UDP connections will be rest.
[1] http://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/google_chinasearch...
It is annoying that people downvote you instead of explaining your error in your assumption about SSL.
BlackHat USA 2011: SSL And The Future Of Authenticity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Wl2FW2TcA
I think this is still a clever and classy move for Google, though I just wonder if it motivates people beyond those already intrinsically motivated (a relatively large % of current Google.CN users).
There's also possibly a punitive element of this: in addition to whatever issues they have with some search terms, the Chinese authorities may have decided to be trigger-happy with the banning as a punishment to Google for ceasing its cooperation on search filtering.
And they have the chuzpe to add "we have checked our systems and couldn't find anything". Way to make yourself complicit.
There have already been congressional hearings into Google's business in china, back when they still tried to enable unhindered access for users there.
Reading between the lines: "Since we moved to Hong Kong and stopped filtering search, the Chinese government is just cutting off internet connections that are seen searching for sensitive terms; here's a workaround that will give you advance warning, so you can rework your search phrasing."
Imagine Google could perfectly predict what would be censored before even querying. Now you can search for related, uncensored terms and find the information you want without having to play a costly guessing game where if you guess wrong, you temporarily lose access to information. This will make evading the censorship easier by lowering the costs of exploration.
If Google has reason to suspect that these interruptions are caused by active censorship by the Chinese government and are unwilling to do so out of fear of that censorship we are all in trouble.
It's not as if the population of China is unaware of censorship. Helpful reminders of what is socially acceptable and what are not have appeared in colorful cartoon form for years online.
It's not as if the Chinese government denies controlling access to information. They see it as a fundamental good to maintain the stability and health of society.
The only place and time where this matters is where the censorship is cast is a negative light. China doesn't want to be insulted on the international stage, and it doesn't want companies promoting unrest among its people. However that criticism is exactly what must happen.
Google could describe what's going on as relating to 'sensitive' terminology. They could describe the 'restrictions' as being imposed for the good of society and apologize that non-sensitive terms are being caught up in the fight for the greater good.
OR they could grow a pair.
Corporations in power have a responsibility to fight for the rights of those people without power. They have a responsibility to do so visibly to set a good example for others, and they have a responsibility to directly and honestly criticize people, companies, and governments they see as violating those rights.
This is an active debate with no guarantee of an outcome that favors American style freedom of information. If the players who can fight this fight won't, we're* fucked.
*We being those who want American style freedom's to exist globally.
People know how to read between the lines.