March 21, 2011

Chinese Government Pries into Gmail Over Online Dissident Movement, Leaves Google Frowning

by ruchi

Owing to the threats of a possible online dissident movement, the Chinese government has been spying into the Gmail accounts of activists and has offended Google in the process. The search engine giant has tainted this very move of China as ‘politically motivated attacks’ which is affecting the credibility of their email services. For months, people in China have been complaining about their Gmail service and when Google enquired into it, they found that there wasn’t really a problem from their side. It was due to carefully designed government blockage disguised as Gmail problem.

China has been more than paranoid about the Jasmine Revolution, the online dissident movement which is following the cult of events in the Middle East. And it isn’t just about Google. There has been as much as 20 other internet, financial, technology, media and chemical companies had been similarly targeted. The journey of Google’s presence in China has never been smooth. With so much of censorship and control over Internet content the idea of search engine loses ground and it is reduced to a dormant service with no actual use. No matter where this goes, I wonder if Google will settle to become like Panguso, a highly censored search engine that apparently showed no results for Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo.
[Guardian]