« China in the eyes of a tourist | Main | Mission (part1) Complete, Back to London ! »
April 20, 2006
Google in China , The Big Disconnect
I have just spent the last 30 minutes reading a lovely piece due to be published in this weekends New York Times Magazine.
Whilst NOT agreeing 100% with what's written, I must say it is a very well researched piece and answers many many questions regarding foreign internet companies doing business in China, and also gives you a glimse into what Chinese surfers are really doing when online.
Brin's team had one more challenge to confront: how to determine which sites to block? The Chinese government wouldn't give them a list. So Google's engineers hit on a high-tech solution. They set up a computer inside China and programmed it to try to access Web sites outside the country, one after another. If a site was blocked by the firewall, it meant the government regarded it as illicit — so it became part of Google's blacklist.
Thanks to Imagethief in Beijing for the tip.
New York Times magazine article
Posted by shak at April 20, 2006 10:33 PM