Google Says Search Engine Partially Blocked in China
The Google.cn "landing site" is displayed on a computer in Beijing on June 29, 2010. Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- John Aiken, an analyst at Majestic Research LLC, talks about the outlook for Google Inc. keeping its Internet license in China. Google said some Web search features have been partially blocked in China as the company awaits a decision from the country’s government on whether it can keep providing Internet services there. Aiken speaks with Carol Massar and Matt Miller on Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (Source: Bloomberg)
June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. said some Web search features have been partially blocked in China as it awaits a decision from the country’s government on whether it can keep providing Internet services there. The blockage affects the “suggest” tool, which helps users refine queries as they’re typed, Google said in an e-mailed statement. Bloomberg's Cris Valerio reports. (Source: Bloomberg)
Google Inc. said some Web search features have been partially blocked in China as the company awaits a decision from the country’s government on whether it can keep providing Internet services there.
The blockage affects the “suggest” tool, which helps users refine queries as they are typed, Mountain View, California-based Google said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Traditional searches are unaffected, it said.
Google, at odds with Chinese rules that require filtered search results, in March began automatically directing users to a site in Hong Kong, where there are no such controls. China said the remedy was unacceptable and may not renew Google’s license to provide Internet services. To allay the government’s concerns, Google began directing users this week to a page with a link to the Hong Kong site.
“It’s looking worse for Google,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners LP in New York who rates the shares “hold” and doesn’t own any. “The momentum in the situation has shifted from Google to China.”
“Partially blocked” means 10 percent to 66 percent of content is inaccessible, according to Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine. Search services in China had been fully or mostly accessible in recent days, the company said.
Other features that remain fully or mostly accessible include news, advertisements and the Gmail e-mail service, Google said.
Google dropped 2.1 percent to close at $444.95 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have fallen 28 percent this year.
Self Censorship
Most of that decline has been since Jan. 12, the day the company announced in a blog it was no longer willing to censor search results on its China service.
Without China, Google would lose access to the world’s largest concentration of Internet users, a concern for investors, Gillis said.
The company made the decision after its systems were targeted by what it called “highly sophisticated” attacks aimed at obtaining proprietary information, as well as personal data belonging to human-rights activists who used Gmail.
Google, which resubmitted an application for the license before a June 30 deadline, said the new China page pointing users to the Hong Kong site lets the company “stay true” to its commitment not to self-censor search results while adhering to local law, according to a blog post.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Womack in San Francisco at bwomack1@bloomberg.net.
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