Recently, Google expanded its “clashing” ways onto the international political stage.  Having always been an outspoken opponent of Chinese Internet censorship, the battle between the two entities reached a fevered pitch recently, culminated by the January 12, 2010 accusation by Google that China initiated a cyber attack on it called Operation Aurora.  Google wasn’t the only company targeted by this attack, with Adobe, Yahoo, and Symantec all having been effected.

In Google’s case, it was suggested that Gmail was the target, specifically the accounts of Chinese human rights activists.  The New York Times reported that the attacks had been traced to two schools in China with close ties to the military, namely Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School.  The Financial Times also reported that US analysts believed they found the Chinese author of the attack code.

This led to a Chinese denial, plans by the U.S. Congress to investigate, and prompted some Chinese citizens to leave flowers outside Google’s offices in what has become known as the “illegal flower tribute”.

The ensuing battle began with talks between Google and China in which Google supposedly threatened to stop censoring its search results in China – to which China threatened consequences of its own.  At one point it was suggested that Google might cease its Chinese operations and leave the country entirely.

Since entering the Chinese market in 2006, Google has censored its search results generated by the queries of Chinese citizens within the country.  For instance, search results for “Tiananmen Square” in China are quite different than those presented to the rest of the world.  Chinese regulators require Google and other search engines to censor their search results in accordance with Chinese law.

However, on March 22, 2010, negotiations between Google and China broke down as Google began redirecting all search traffic originating within the Chinese mainland from google.cn to google.com.hk.  This allows Google to lawfully get around Chinese regulators by redirecting traffic to Hong Kong, which has far less censorship.  China quickly modified their Great Firewall, censoring the Hong Kong Google page to Chinese web browsers.

Google’s actions have infuriated China’s authorities.  The second-largest Chinese carrier, China Unicom, has removed Google’s search from their Android phones, openly stating that Google’s actions inspired them to do so.  Google has delayed the availability of new Android applications in China.  It is reported that the largest Chinese carrier, China Mobile, is currently under government pressure to stop working with Google.

It is clear that this feud is becoming more complicated and more of an international political issue.  While Google would like other companies to follow its lead, several, including Microsoft, have shunned it and vow to continue operating under existing Chinese censorship rules.  Some reports even indicate that China may move to block all Google search traffic within the country.  This is getting interesting….