China Tells Google to Block Porn, Online Gambling Next?
Chinese officials have officially scolded Google for the third time for allowing access to pornographic images on the Internet. China has tried to block porn, online gambling, and political sites with its own internal filtering, known as the Great Firewall, and through the forced installation of Green Dam software to block sexual sites and online casinos.
But neither method has proved successful, and criticism remains that the "harmful sites" list will continue to expand. Now Google says it is "taking all necessary steps" to keep porn images from reaching Chinese PCs.
Neither the company nor China was saying whether Google had been directly commanded to censor websites. But the obsequious attitude by Google rendered the point moot, as it tries to make inroads to the Chinese market.
While Internet gambling is not specifically mentioned, its past linking in censorship decrees has many in the online casino industry expecting their sites to be included in the search engine ban.
Google had previously blocked porn results for Chinese language searches, but residents have surpassed that ban by using the foreign language searches to reach sexual sites.
