Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday, saying the U.S. government is "committed to helping promote Internet freedom." While she didn't directly endorse Google's decision to potentially shut down its China-based operations, Clinton did say that censorship "should not be in any way accepted by any company anywhere." She also called upon China to fully investigate the cyberattacks that led to Google's stance.
This whole Google-China debacle has snowballed faster than you can say "." (Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it.) The truth, though, is that Google's beef with China dates back nearly a decade -- and these recent turns are really just the straws that broke the Google's back.
Here's a guide to the peaks and valleys that paved the way to the standoff we're seeing now.
Google and China: The Beginnings
• September 2000: Google introduces a Chinese version of its search engine at the Google.com domain.
• September 2002: Access to Google's site is completely blocked in China for about two weeks. It appears the domain name was -- a move the Chinese government may have been behind. Soon thereafter, signs of begin to surface. Even the brainiacs who got all of right can't quite figure out what's going on.
Google and China: The Censorship Begins
• January 2006: Google relents and , a specialized version of its search site that filters out pornographic and "politically sensitive" results. The company acknowledges that the filtering "clearly compromises [its] mission," but notes that "failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population ... [would do so] far more severely."
• March 2008: China during riots in Tibet. It isn't the first time China has , and it won't be the last.
• March 2009: Fast-forward one year, and YouTube . (Did I call that one or what?) A Chinese official denies his nation is afraid of the Internet; a wisecracking writer . This ban, by most accounts, is still pretty much in place today.
Google and China: The Tensions Climb
• June 2009: China finds some pornographic results in the Google.cn site and . (Those guys evidently never read about why porn is actually good for society.) The country blocks access to Google until the G-team wipes out every mention of the G-spot.
• September 2009: The guy who ran the Google China operation since its inception . Analysts speculate that his departure between Google and the People's Republic. Around the same time, satirists speculate that Apple to form its own repressive business strategies.
Google and China: Spiraling Out of Control
• January 12, 2010: Google announces that it will in China following an attack on its servers in the country. The attack, Google says, targeted the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered ... have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China," Google explains . "We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn. ... We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."
• January 14, 2010: China counters Google's threat by saying if it wants to operate in the country, it will . Those laws include the requirement to filter (read: censor) search results.
• January 14, 2010: Microsoft says it'll , despite Google's concerns position. Said news is not announced via , as that account will not be activated until 1/19, silly.
• January 18, 2010: Someone of foreign journalists at two Beijing news bureaus. This may or may not be related to the main attack, but its timing certainly doesn't help with the tension.
• January 18, 2010: An unnamed source claims with the cyberattacks in some way.
• January 19, 2010: Google announces it's in China. Reports indicate the delay is related to the company's ongoing talks with Chinese authorities.
• January 21, 2010: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashes out against Internet censorship. But you already know that. Unless you suffer from memory loss. Which, by the way, , according to China's state-run news agency.
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