These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Official Statement from the SOS, so far

I was late to the party on this one; Marn clued me in:

marn: Here, on the other hand, is one of the most hopeful pictures of the last few days:
http://i.imgur.com/5xJmy.jpg
me: Where is that?
Marn: Google's headquarters in China, best I can tell
it looks like their decision was a popular one, by the flowers
me: What decision? Did I miss something?
Marn: oh, yeah... a few days ago, "someone" was caught breaking into the gmail accounts of human rights protesters in China
and Google issued a press release saying they'd had it up to here with this crap
and they weren't going to censor search results any more either
me: WOOT!
Oh, wonderful!
Marn: and if the Chinese government didn't like it they were going to pull out and see how they liked it then
me: Ha!
Marn: and now if you search for "tianenmen" on google.cn there are corpses and tanks


This is huge; I firmly believe that access to information can make all the difference in some situations. Certainly, the most repressive regimes fear free information the most. I saw Tianenmen Square happen when I was a teen, via american TV. I can't imagine growing up in that country and never having seen those overwhelming images, let alone everything else that's been censored.

Ball's in China's court now. I'm waiting to see what happens.