Google is “99.9 percent” certain to closing the doors to China. Google’s been in talks with China for a couple of months now, threatening to pull out of China due to censorship laws. Now, a source close to the company says that Google’s senior executives are “adamant” about ending any censorship in China while looking for a safe out to take “steps to protect local employees from retaliation by the authorities.”
Last Friday, minister for industry and information technology in China, Li Yizhong, proclaimed, “If [Google] takes steps that violate Chinese laws, that would be unfriendly, that would be irresponsible, and they would have to bear the consequences.”
Read more at the Financial Times.
Oh, did I mention that Google China execs may be starting their own China search engine if Google pulls out? The Business Insider has more on that if you’re interested.
