Google has decided to stop providing a cencored version to it's Chinese audience. Google was criticised by many human rights groups when it entered into an agreement with the Chinese government to offer its search services with restrictions on the types of sites that users can access. Typically, pro-democracy and anti government sites were removed from the search results, as were other topics including teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes. Some uk based sites like the BBC were also banned following dictates from Beiing officials.

During the last year, there have been a growing number of attacks on the google servers from china, most recently sustained hacking attempts of human rights activists email account.

If google does withdraw from China, then it would risk losing a huge source of revenue. However the increasing burden of censorship, critisim of its claim to support free speech, and the contant struggle to gain market share against its rival Baidu, which holds 60% of the search engine market in china have all made the prospect of working in China less attractive.