In china, no matter what you say, if no the action. Should be safe. But not including famous. Google famous, so his speaking will be treated as actions in china.

It is not simple in China. Everything complex. If you do not evil, sometimes break the law. If you think you are protecting the human rights, in fact you are hurt them.

In fact, Google should changes their Censorship based on the locations. Different country have different laws, different cultures.

China is a big country with 1300000000 persons.
Although china said he is Soviet, but really same with the USA now. Although for the political structure, china said he is solo, but really most official born from Votes.
China target is also Rich, Freedom, Safe just like USA.

The difference between China and western countries now only the language and name.

Chinese like use old bottles to package new wine. When the new wine become old, they will use the new bottles.

I understand why you despise Google. But. How can Google do in china? No Censorship means keep Google self in China.

Censorship better than none. It is only way to keep Google in China.

> I understand why you despise Google.

I didn't say that... I was saying that some Chinese despised the move.

> Censorship better than none. It is only way
> to keep Google in China.

As I mentioned, according to Google's figures, there was a 90% working Google before the release of Google.cn. I saw it myself when I traveled China in 2005, for what it's worth.

Google.com was not threatened to be completely kicked out of China – when the officials tried to do that, they found they had to revert their move due to public outcry:

<<BRIN: China actually shut us down a couple of times.

PLAYBOY: Did you negotiate with the Chinese government to unblock your site?

BRIN: No. There was enough popular demand in China for our services – information, commerce and so forth – that the government re-enabled us.>>
http://www.google-watch.org/playboy.html

Chinese are smart enough to demand the right tools to get the information. And according to Brin's statement from half a year ago, they are still mostly using Google.com. (I also use Google.com and never the local, censored Google Germany, though the situation is mostly incomparable – I'm just saying.)

The real threat Google saw was not "Google will be completely blocked", but that they saw their market share dwindle in China because of competition that *did* obey to the Chinese gov't early on.

Is there really any part of Google Germany censored?

Yes, there is Paul:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google+censorship+germany+site%3Ablog.outer-court.com&btnG=Google+Search

Google agreed to a voluntary self-censorship conduct in Germany, and they also follow-up on other censorship requests. Exactly what is happening behind the scenes is hard to come by, as Google only hands out the usual phrases*. This means a lot of sites are missing in Google.de. A while ago, the missing pages (like stormfront.org) were not always disclosed in search results, but as of 2006, they are. Example:
http://www.google.de/search?hl=en&q=site%3Astormfront.org&btnG=Google-Suche&meta=

* On the question "Why exactly is the website ...stormfront.org removed in your German search engine?", Google answers me: "Thank you for your note. It is Google's policy not to censor search results. However, in response to local laws, regulations, or policies, we may do so. When we remove search results for these reasons, we display a notice on our search results pages."

I just feel you despise Google like some chinese. I am sorry.

Anyway, Google agreed to censorship is not bad news. For personal search, can be treated as self-censorship for personal user. Google is smart and offer the unique service for per user and per country and per nations. That is wonderful.

Chinese is old polite nation for old years and current. Chinese nation including 56 nations, and china have many friends country all over world. China must respect all nations and all friends. So the best way is say nothing. That is one of the reasons why China ask google for self-censorship.

Google in chinese old way some. All friends, no Enemies. I like it.

I don't agree with the points Xiaowan said. As another Chinese here.

Google can keep itself in China since Internet is ultimately boundless. Before Google formally operated in China, they don't need any self-censorship or self-castrated. The protest of Internet users successfully released a blockage by China government in 2003 when Google didn't hire anyone in China.

Google's decision of self-censorship was made after Google's business operation in China. Google's motto and principles was changed by the local employees and local managers, then impacted to their founders by mistake. However, many google's services, including search cache page, are still blocked by Greate Firewall everyday. I don't think the compromise takes any positive effect to Google. And even worse, the market share still drops.

The ultimate way is keeping its universal value. If "non-evil" is a motto, it's applied anywhere and even anytime. Otherwise, it will lose its value totally. Many people here in China, especially those geeks, hate the comprise by Google. Didn't Google listen to them? Remeber, they are also opinion leaders to the market, no wonder the market share will lose.

The "worst" case is that Google withdraw the business operation from China, totally. Google service won't be totally blocked, trust me. The Internet users won't allow that. But will it be the worst case to Google, not really, it will revive the only hope in Chinese people to have a pure Internet from those disabled local web services.

"Chinese is old polite nation for old years and current. Chinese nation including 56 nations, and china have many friends country all over world. China must respect all nations and all friends. So the best way is say nothing. That is one of the reasons why China ask google for self-censorship."

Yeah thats not why Google had to censor chinese google. They censor it so that their citizens cannot find information about certian things, including human rights and anything negative about the current governing body. The censor it to try and keep their citizens from learning certain things that go on, and to discourage any sort of revolt.