economic model to suit Chinese national laws

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It requires Internet companies operating in China to comply with the country's stringent censorship and security laws. As part of this process, Google has been tailoring part of its service to omit sources blocked by Chinese censors. For example, when a user in China searches Google's news service, sites related to Falun Gong and other groups banned by the government don't show up.

While other countries set some limits on what people can put on the Internet, China's constraints are perhaps the world's most extensive. It can be difficult to figure out just who enforces the rules and how. Numerous agencies -- from the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets to the General Administration of Press and Publications -- have jurisdiction over the Internet. Foreign companies operating in China are obliged to comply with rules that block access to online content deemed politically unacceptable. Failure to heed the rules can cost a company its business licenses or trigger other penalties. Companies can also be required to turn over information on users suspected of having broken China's wide-ranging, but often vague, laws.

source:

1) http://lonestartimes.com/2005/12/19/

2) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113468633674723824.html?mod=home_page_one_asia
As Google Pushes Into China,
It Faces Clashes With Censors
Executives Wrestled With Issue
As Others Took the Lead;
Now, It's Charging Ahead
What 'Don't Be Evil' Means

By JASON DEAN in Beijing and KEVIN J. DELANEY in San Francisco
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

December 16, 2005

Google puts muzzle on itself in China
By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006

DAVOS, Switzerland The company motto may be "Don't be evil," but Google, like other Western Internet companies, will adopt self-censorship to build its business in China, one of the world's largest potential Internet markets.

A growing number of visitors from China to the uncensored Web address www.google.com will now be redirected to the self-censored www.google.cn, Google executives said Tuesday. Citing concerns for the safety of the fewer than 50 Google employees based in China, company executives spoke on the condition of anonymity and insisted that all quotations for this article come from a written statement.

"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," Google said in a statement. "Google.cn will provide meaningful benefits to Chinese Internet users."

The news of Google's approach to China comes as the company battles a U.S. government effort to gain access to records of millions of search queries by its users. But fighting the government is not an option for businesses seeking entry into China. Self-censorship was a condition tied to Google's recently obtained license from the Ministry for Information Industries to run the .cn service, the Google executives said.

The .cn address will offer a stripped-down version of Google's offerings, including a self-censored version of the Google search engine. The self-censorship will be conducted on an ad hoc basis by Google in cooperation with the authorities. Since the government's censorship mechanism remains opaque and there is no list of what is banned, Google executives said they would feel their way forward to learn what would be censored.

The .cn address will not have any services that could have direct political implications or that would involve Google's holding personal information in China of potential interest to the Chinese authorities. For that reason, the company said, it would not offer e-mail service, discussion groups, video searches or blogging services.

"Clearly Google is searching for a way to do business in China that avoids them sending a someone to jail over an e-mail," said Rebecca Mackinnon, a research fellow at the Berkmann Center for Internet and ...