01/12/10

Google may pull out of China following cyber attacks on Gmail accounts held by Chinese dissidents, The Washington Post and others reported. 

In a post on its corporate blog, Google said it had evidence that a concerted attack targeted not only Google, but 20 other "large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities."

The statement, from Google's chief legal officer David Drummond, said that the primary goal of the attack on its servers was attempted access of Chinese human-rights activists. He said that the attackers "did not achieve that objective."

But the subsequent investigation revealed that dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who advocated human rights in China appeared to have had their accounts "routinely accessed by third parties," possibly through phishing scams or similar breaches.

Drummond said the attacks "have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

As an immediate result, he said Google will no longer voluntarily censor search results for Chinese audiences on Google.cn, something it did to appease the Chinese government.