Thaindian News

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA (BNO NEWS) – Google could lose its Internet Content Provider (ICP) license to operate its website in China if they continue redirecting Chinese users to Google’s uncensored Hong Kong search engine, David Drummond, Google Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer announced on late Monday.

On January, Google announced that they were no longer willing to censor results on Google.cn (Google’s Chinese search engine). The Chinese government reacted by saying that the redirection was unacceptable.

The redirect offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese that worked well for both users and the company, but Chinese officials rejected the unfiltered results. In an effort of avoiding losing the Chinese website, Google have started a small percentage of them to a landing page on Google.cn that links to Hong Kong’s site.

This strategy would allow users to conduct web search or continue to use Google.cn services like music and text translate, which can be provided without filtering. According to Drummond, this would ensure Google’s commitment to not censor their results and give users the possibility to access all services from one page.

Google is expecting that the new approach will be approved by Chinese officials and announced that the new landing page will be completed in a few days. The company also announced that they have submitted their ICP license renewal.