With nearly 400 million internet users, China has the world's largest search engine market. Google gained around 20 percent of the market after it reached an agreement with the Chinese authorities to employ self-censorship when it came to 'sensitive' topics. This figure is far behind that of China's largest search engine, Baidu, but still a respectable number.
Many people visit the Chinese website of Radio Netherlands Worldwide every month thanks to the Google search engine. Most of them arrive at the site after entering search words such as 'gay' or 'human rights'. Bo Xiao of RNW’s Chinese service says that when Google announced it would not cooperate with China’s desired censorship his first thought was “ people will no longer be able to find us."
Tibet
So far, the opposite appears to be the case. Mr Bo exclaims in surprise: "The number of visitors via Google has actually risen enormously!" And instead of search terms such as 'gay', the politically much more sensitive term 'Tibet' has a high score. Apparently people are testing whether Google is still functioning. Which seems to be the case.
Although Google has shut down its self-censored Chinese search engine www.google.cn, Chinese users are now being redirected via its unrestricted site in the former British colony of Hong Kong www.google.com.hk, where other laws apply. Most Chinese visitors were directed to Radio Netherlands Worldwide via the Hong Kong search engine.
The 'Great Firewall'
The difference is that www.google.cn filtered out searches which the Chinese authorities deemed undesirable. However, this is not the case with other Google search engines. Anyone who conducts an internet search on a site in China is confronted with the government's filtering system 'The Great Firewall', which unrelentingly censors certain search terms.
In effect, everything remains as before. The only question is whether the Chinese authorities will allow the relatively subtle form of censorship that still exists or shut down access to Google altogether, as happened earlier with popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Björn van Veen works for Tribal China, which supports Dutch and other Western internet sites in China. He does not think it will go that far. "They have no interest in thwarting Google since the company still has a research department in China, which earns the government money."
Also, one of the reasons why the authorities have blocked access to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook is that they allow users to form communities and share information, user to user. As the information isn't all neatly located in one central place, it's hard for a firewall to intercept 'undesirable' content. Search engines such as Google, on the other hand, are relatively static. That makes them easy to control - by firewall, for example.
Internet giant
Bo Xiao of Radio Netherlands Worldwide warns that if the conflict between China and Google escalates and the internet giant's search engines are blocked, then the consequences will be serious.
Google may not control a large part of the Chinese market, but those who prefer Google to Baido are - according to a survey conducted by the Chinese organisation CNNIC - well-educated, or are people such as scientists with many international contacts. These very active internet users would be the people hardest hit.
Which is why a Chinese biologist issued a warning in the United States newspaper Washington Post that: without Google, there is "only darkness".|
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A card, a letter and flowers are placed on the Google logo at its China headquarters building in Beijing after it moved its Chinese-language search engine to Hong Kong. Photograph: Feng Li/Getty Images
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