Censor-tive Issue

China has condemned Google Inc. which today stopped censoring its China-based search engine and began redirecting users from Google.cn to an uncensored version in Hong Kong. The Chinese government said the move was “totally wrong” and accused Google of violating promises. Google warned China two months ago that it would shut the search engine down if it had to continue policing the site, following a row over hacked email accounts in which the Chinese government was implicated. “Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks,” an official with the State Council Information Office, a Cabinet office that oversees the internet, said in a statement carried by the official Xinhua News Agency. “This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicisation of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts,” said the official, who was with the office’s internet bureau but not further identified. The move by Google essentially shifts responsibility of internet censorship in China away from the search engine and onto the country’s government.