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Google’s relationship with China has always been a rocky one; the company’s longstanding presence there — and its status as the second most popular search engine behind China’s native Baidu — has consistently irritated the Chinese government, which favors more restricted internet access than Google’s search engine typically provides. China has also had issues with how Google’s Android operating system dominates the Chinese mobile landscape. In fact, early last year, the government issued documentation stating that Google was guilty of unfair code-sharing practices, preventing Chinese developers from gaining any significant foothold in the operating system market. Now, China’s government will have one more bone to pick with the U.S.-based internet company: Google has revealed that it will begin to encrypt searches performed in China — a move meant to ensure against the prying eyes of not only Chinese censorship monitors, but also the U.S. National Security Agency.
VISUAL CONTEXT: U.S. AND CHINA INTERNET USAGE
Source: China Internet Network Information Center and Pew Research
Encryption as a concept has been more at the forefront of the tech scene in the post-Snowden era of communications technology. Some companies are now looking to provide more secure devices — as urged by Edward Snowden himself this week via videocall at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. Hardware makers — such as Silent Circle and FreedomPop — are issuing devices like the Blackphone to keep communications out of the NSA’s hands. But Google’s new encryption plan for China’s search engine users reportedly does more than that — it would enable users to bypass the censorship monitors of China’s evermore tightly controlled web networks. The Washington Post reports that countries will still have the option of blocking Google’s services wholesale, but that filtering out search content will be increasingly difficult.
This move seems to be a deliberate tactic on the part of Google to encourage the spread of the open internet. In November 2013, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt publicly urged China to embrace internet freedom, and to forego its tight controls on what terms are searchable, and what bloggers and users of social media can publish to their personal profiles. As Schmidt put it:
All of (China’s) leaders (emphasize) the logic of growth and the need to avoid the middle-income trap. When that growth stops, the strength and toughness so appealing now internally will come in question. Freedom of expression, an open Internet, and inclusiveness are probably the only way to address these future problems . . . The Chinese leaders’ mindset appears to be more like an energy field.. where as long as there are small disturbances they can tolerate it but anything major, or disruptive, they will deal with and often harshly. My sense is that this will continue to be true for a long time.
Google’s encryption tactics could provide tangible ways for Chinese users to bypass the “Great Firewall” of Chinese internet restrictions, or it could cause more of a blockage of Google’s services in the country. Either way, it looks like the beginning of a new landscape of search for those operating under China’s seven baseline internet regulations.
