Mon 12th of July, filed under SEO
The Chinese government has renewed Google's Internet Content Provider (ICP) license, it has been revealed. The new ICP will allow the search engine to continue operating in the country, despite disagreements between the company and the Chinese authorities over censored SERPs.
"We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China," wrote Google's chief legal officer David Drummond on the official Google blog.
"Ever since we launched Google.cn, our search engine for mainland Chinese users, we have done our best to increase access to information while abiding by Chinese law. This has not always been an easy balance to strike," he continued.
Indeed, Google and the Chinese government clashed in January over the search engine's decision to offer unfiltered results in the country. The move by Google, which was prompted by a series of cyber attacks on the site, saw Chinese searchers automatically redirected to uncensored listings on Google's Hong Kong search engine.
The recent agreement between Google and the Chinese government appears to signal better relations between the two parties; Google has agreed to abandon the redirect to its Hong Kong site, while giving users the chance to access results from this portal via a link on the Google China homepage. The search engine currently owns 30 per cent market share of Chinese search traffic.
"As a company we aspire to make information available to users everywhere, including China. It’s why we have worked so hard to keep Google.cn alive, as well as to continue our research and development work in China. This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self censor and, we believe, with local law," Drummond added.
