Google Eliminates Hong Kong Redirect in China in Hopes of Domain Renewal

The tension between China and Google is about to reaching a turning point–for better or worse. Google’s Chinese ICP license for Google.cn is up for renewal as of June 30. The Chinese government is discontent with the Hong Kong website where Google automatically links users of Google.cn, and a renewal is not looking likely. Google, therefore, has been backed into revising its approach.

The search company announced today that to appease Chinese authorities Google will stop redirecting Chinese users to Google.com.hk and will offer a new Google.cn landing page on which users can manually access Google.com.hk through a link. Google hopes this new approach will result in an ICP renewal.

Back in January, Google announced that it would no longer filter its search results in China. It began tense negotiations with the Chinese, who maintained that anyone doing business in China has to play by its rules. Two months later, Google closed the Google.cn site and began redirecting Chinese users to the Hong Kong site to skirt Chinese regulations. Needless to say, China has been less than happy with this and now it holds the ultimate trump card: without an ICP license, Google won’t be able to operate its search engine in the country.

Google submitted its renewal application today, so the ball is over in China’s court. We’ll have to wait to see how the next chapter in the Google-China novel reads. [via Google Blog]