Google might shut down China offices after problems with hacker assaults, government censorship

Google might be calling it quits in China after a number of problems plaguing the search engine giant over there, namely repeated targeted email attacks and conflicts with the Chinese government over searchable content.

Google has found itself caught in the middle of a free speech battle. According to the New York Times, the Goog made an arrangement in 2006 with the Chinese government to censor its Chinese search results on specified banned topics. But a lot of critics are upset with the company for ever making such a deal and "abetting a system" that restricts what people can search for and read online.

Then in December, the computer security systems of at least 20 companies, including Google, were targeted in an email attack in which hackers might have obtained private data and software source codes.

Thus, Google has made a statement attesting that the attack originated in China and that they believe that the "primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists." The company says they will no longer continue censoring search results on Google.cn, and that they will be meeting with the Chinese government about developing "an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

That probably won't be possible, thus Google has already conceded that they might be closing up shop in the country altogether.

Thoughts?