With months of negotiations and talks held on different levels, the result as we predicted was not in favor of the internet search giant Google. Google eventually wrapped up its operation on the search engine side (Google.cn) and started redirecting the users to Google's Hong Kong based site, as earlier reported. Millions of Chinese users were at surprise when they were welcomed by Google's uncensored Hong Kong based search engine. We had also predicted that uncensored search results available on another domain for the Chinese users was a game being played with the authorities. We knew some action might be taken as the warning was immediately issued to Google.
In the early hours of Tuesday, the Government of China made a strict move again. Users are now being restricted and are facing problems accessing the Hong Kong based site. Google thought that this way it would be able to keep the millions of Chinese users happy and retain the share of Google in China's fast growing Internet search market.
But this could not happen, as anything happening inside the country which it prohibits will be taken off the airwaves. Chinese users could not see uncensored Hong Kong content as the government computers disabled searches or the related content was blocked.
Google's move to Hong Kong made the Beijing officials angry, who thought that Google was playing a game with them in displaying results which they don't allow. The government's censorship policies are strict and there is no possible way to crack it.
It is also being rumored that the deal between Google and China Mobile is about to collapse due to the action taken by the government on the internet search giant. China Mobile was to feature Google's search engine on its mobile internet home page, which is accessed by millions of users daily. China Mobile is under immense government pressure to cancel the deal and look for an alternative.
China Unicom, the second largest mobile company has also been heard as saying that it would be delaying or completely scrapping the deal with Google to introduce a cellphone based on Google's Android Platform.
A Government official told:
The Chinese are very serious about pushing their soft-power agenda. Google just put a big hole in that sales pitch, and I think they know that. So the idea that Google can take out its search business and leave everything else, and China will just forgive and forget — that’s very much not how the Chinese government works.