The future doesn’t look bright for Google in China

Google’s announcement that it will leave China if the censoring of their search results continues seems not to have affected the Chinese government much.

They have not showed any intention of complying to the request, and what’s more, they actually announced new restriction as regards to Internet use. Anyone who wishes to have a personal website will have to ask for permission for the government to do so. They will also be required to supply a photo and some form of identification.

The government says all this will be employed as a measure to deal with pornography on the Internet, but there are many who see it just as another measure to silence the political opposition.

According to Wired, last year the Chinese government made it mandatory for every newly manufactured PC to be equipped with censorship software. Also last year, YouTube was blocked because of of videos of anti-Tibetan violence, and Google was often criticized by the government, who is of the opinion that the search giant makes pornography readily available.

So far, the future doesn’t look very bright for Google in China, but who knows? One group of people who will surely be sad to see it retreat are the Chinese scientists. According to Reuters, a survey conducted by the “Nature News” journal brought to light that 84 percent of the scientists think that losing Google would “somewhat or significantly” interfere negatively with their research. 78 percent said that the collaboration with scientist outside of China will be made more difficult.

Commenting on the survey, David Nicholas, an Internet researcher, said that Google “has transformed information-seeking behaviors in academic communities.”