Google Signals U-turn Over Chinese Site

Internet giant Google may reverse its decision to launch a censored version of its search engine in China, one of the company's founders has said.

Sergey Brin said the Californian company had "felt that perhaps we could compromise on our principles, but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese" with Google.cn, which does not link to results for politically incendiary terms such as "Tiananmen Square" or "Falun Gong", the religious movement banned by the Chinese government.

But Mr Brin said he could consider reversing that decision. "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense," he told reporters in Washington.

Google was widely accused of ignoring its informal motto, "Don't be evil", in favour of commercial gain when the Chinese service began in January. Campaigners have voiced strong concerns about the conflict between the repressive regime in Beijing and Google's commitment to freedom of information, but representatives for the company have argued that a policy of engagement is more valuable to Chinese internet users than refusing to deal with the authorities. Mr Brin intimated that Google could now be considering another approach.

"It's perfectly reasonable to do something different, to say, 'Look, we're going to stand by the principle against censorship, and we won't actually operate there'. That's an alternate path," said the Russian-born entrepreneur, 31, who founded Google with Larry Page in 1996, when they were at Stanford University.

Google has claimed that Chinese surfers can use its main portal, Google.com, to read material that does not appear on the censored site. But it is thought that Mr Brin's comments may have been precipitated by reports that the international site has been inaccessible throughout much of China for long periods of time - apparently blocked by the so-called Great Firewall, which prevents access to websites the government deems unsavoury.

"I don't think they were that comfortable with the decision in the first place," said Danny Sullivan, editor of the Search Engine Watch website. "But Google.com has never worked perfectly within China - that, after all, is the reason why Google caved in to create an approved Chinese edition."

Two months ago Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said that entering the Chinese market was the right thing to do and that the company had no intention of confronting the government.

"I'm wondering if Google are really hypocritical or just naive," said Julian Pain of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns against online censorship. "They never made a clear statement about what they would accept from the Chinese and what they wouldn't - now they're not sure about how far they can go. I hope they start realising that the internet is a global network and that doing something in one part of the world has an effect in another."