As expected, Google today has officially removed Google.cn from their servers, redirecting everyone who tries to go there to Google.com.hk. Rumors over the past few weeks showed that Google was planning to pull operations out of China, due to several disputes over censorship.
When users will attempt to go to Google.cn, they will be redirected to Google.com.hk, the Hong Kong version of Google. Search results will continue to offer results for the Chinese market, but they will be uncensored.
Google has said that they are not stopping all of their operations in China and that they will “continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk.”
In a Google blog post, Google mentioned that all of the decisions to stop censoring search results were made by executives in the U.S.
It is now expected that China will be blocking Google.com.hk from people trying to access it in China.
[...] Google’s license to host Google.cn, a censored version of Google.Back in March, Google had completely removed Google.cn, redirecting it the Google.com.hk, Google Hong Kong, which is uncensored. It was then clear that the Chinese government would not [...]