City to host Google's return?
- Source: Global Times
- [09:09 September 07 2010]
- Comments
By Tang Zhao
Google China is keeping silent about rumors published on a leading Chinese IT website Monday, saying that the online search engine giant plans to re-enter the Chinese market - suggesting that the company will do so this time via Shanghai.
The report on enet.com.cn said that the company will re-start Internet search engine operations on the Chinese mainland by the end of the year, transferring employees from its Beijing headquarters to its existing office in the city at Raffles City near People's Square in Shanghai.
The publicized rumors come ahead of the Shanghai leg of a China road show that Google has planned for next month, which the US-based company will use as a platform to announce their return to the mainland said the report.
High-ranking guest speakers, including Liu Yun, vice president of Google, are lined up for the October 21 Shanghai stop to be held at the Renaissance Hotel in Zhongshan Park with local advertising partner Shanghai Tianqing Information Technology Company.
The 4th annual road show aims to promote Google's advertisement business among small and medium-size businesses, according to Tianqing's official website Monday.
According to Chen Yongdong, an associate professor specializing in new media at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the likelihood that Google China is knocking on opportunity with its road show is high.
"Most Google users in China want the company to come back," he told the Global Times Monday. "But it really boils down to the relocation of the servers.
"Since its China page was redirected to Hong Kong, users in China still get intermittent interruption when they use Google."
The latest hearsay in the Google China fallout follows its highly controversial departure from the mainland, when it shut down the google.cn domain on March 23, forcing China-based users to be automatically redirected to its Hong Kong website google.com.hk.
Google blamed "strict government censorship" for its exit from the mainland - giving up on the market potential of some 210 million Chinese users - while the central government responded to the event by saying that Google had broken earlier promises when it stopped filtering search results on the mainland.
The government was also furious with the company for pointing the finger at China for alleged hacker attacks.
