From Ohmynews International:
Despite the more stable, but censored Google.cn option, more than 99 percent of users in China still opted to use the uncensored Google.com.
Then about two weeks ago there were reports that Google.com had stopped working completely in China. Google co-founder Sergey Brin said late last week that “It’s perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, ‘Look, we’re going to stand by the principle against censorship and we won’t actually operate there.’ That’s an alternative path. It’s not where we chose to go right now, but I can sort of see how people came to different conclusions about doing the right thing.”
Brin also admitted that Google had compromised its principles when it had agreed to bow to the Chinese government’s censorship regulations by making online content unavailable to users in China when Google.com was made spotty to some and completely unavailable to others. “We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference,” Brin said.
“If you are a normal Chinese user and you want to use Google, just go to Google.com and you actually won’t get good service. Eventually you will go to Google.cn,” Brin said. [Full Text]
