Google to China: Fine, No Porn for You

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Google relents to China's demands and has begun to filter out pornographic material flowing into the country via Google.cn

Recently China came under the spotlight with its demands that PC manufacturers include surveillance software on all desktops and notebooks shipped into the country. While seemingly intrusive, the Chinese government assured protesters that the software was merely a parental tool provided to filter out pornographic material, and that consumers were not obligated to use the free product. However, the software is only a small part of a larger attempt to crackdown on the loads of foreign pornographic material infiltrating the country through the Internet--a heavy crackdown that began back in January.

Google, one of China's major targets, suffered a few slaps on the wrist last week after the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC) accused Google of violating the country's Internet regulations and laws by "disseminating pornographic and vulgar information." The CIIRC previously warned Google twice over the last four months in reference to the pornographic search results, and now some Google-based Chinese-language search results are blocked as well as its associated word-search services have been suspended since Friday.

Google responded to the country's lashings by speaking with government officials in reference to its Google.cn service. "We are undertaking a thorough review of our service and taking all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results," said Google's communications director, John Pinette, in a statement. According to the company, it has already addressed the large majority of the problematic results.

Although Google is working to correct the link problem, the CIIRC said that further actions would be taken if the California-based Internet searching company did not fully comply. According to the organization, 1001 websites were blocked while an additional 4,000 websites were actually closed due to "distributing porn and other lewd material." Currently there are more Internet surfers in China than in the United States.

Kevin Parrish

Kevin started taking PCs apart in the 90s when Quake was on the way and his PC lacked the required components. Since then, he’s loved all things PC-related and cool gadgets ranging from the New Nintendo 3DS to Android tablets. He is currently a contributor at Digital Trends, writing about everything from computers to how-to content on Windows and Macs to reviews of the latest laptops from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and more. 

33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Wayoffbase
    There was no mention of China's filtering of political content in this article, isn't Google already helping them with that? Seems I remember hearing about that years ago.
    Reply
  • Ciuy
    "distributing porn and other lewd material."

    LEWD LOL stupid chinese officials.
    Reply
  • mediacrates
    "LEWD LOL stupid chinese officials."
    There's some stupidity afoot without a doubt, Ciuy.
    Reply
  • dreamphantom_1977
    Why doesn't china filter out there own crap?
    Reply
  • p00dl3_h3r0
    dreamphantom_1977Why doesn't china filter out there own crap?
    It's obvious. Along with being the biggest cash cow in their economy, and already begining to selling them international stock in all of our big companies at bargain prices, they now want us to solve all of their other little domestic problems. I'm sure they'll start requiring us to bow in their prescence next year, around the same time they start selling cheap piece of garbage Blu-Ray players made by 9 year olds.
    Reply
  • Censorship is just wrong...Parents, not the government, should be able to decide what their kids get up to.. What 2 or more consenting adults do for money on film/webcam/video is their business.. and mine if I want to watch it.
    Reply
  • NuclearShadow
    I'm honestly disappointed in Google. In Google's own philosophy it clearly states "You can make money without doing evil."

    Censorship is certainly evil and complying with is just as. This hasn't been the first time Google has done such acts either. They chose to profit with evil once again. Damn hypocrites.
    Reply
  • acecombat
    dreamphantom_1977Why doesn't china filter out there own crap?Haven't you heard of the great firewall of china?
    Reply
  • NYCGPS
    without china, you guys are all fucked.

    so just STFU already.
    Reply
  • Obviously according to NuclearShadow, feeding porn to youngsters are considered a godly behavior in wherever he/she is living.
    Reply