The great firewall of china is one the most controversial state driven online actions in the history of the internet, the very idea of restricting the free-flow of information was seen to be contravening several human rights acts. In 2006 Google was viewed by many to have supported this infringement when they agreed to build a specific version of the Google search engine for the Chinese government, Google.cn. This country specific version of Google was designed to restrict the delivered information to only state approved material. Quite what Google’s intentions were at this point is unclear as it was an action that stood in opposition to the Search engine’s usually open and inclusive take on information.

Google may now be having some cause to regret their association as they were recently the victims of several hack attempts that originated from within China. The attacks were not limited to just Google, but also directed at Finance, media and other business sectors. While no one person or group has been identified as the perpetrators of the attacks the direct attack on Google’s systems were aimed at the Gmail accounts of known Chinese Human Rights Activists. It seems as though the attacks were not successful with only account creation dates and Email subject lines being accessed before the attacks were blocked.

There is a possibility, given the targets of these attacks and the location from which they originated that the attacks were made by elements of the Chinese government. It is unlikely that this will ever be established for sure but if so this could mark the end of Google’s involvement with the People’s Republic. One would hope that in time we may see a relaxing in the restrictive attitude towards information as China has a wealth of information that would be of great benefit to all if it could be indexed by the prevalent search engines.

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