The Chinese government is imposing new internet restrictions demanding personal website operators to acquire federal permission to operate their sites.
The latest censorship measure, which covers .cn domestic domains, comes as Google is trying to convince Chinese censors to ease up. Google said 43 days ago it would undertake a self-imposed exile from China if the government did not back off from requiring it to censor search results.
The government said the latest move — which also requires site owners to submit to a photograph and to show identification — was targeted at tackling pornography. Though critics said it was based on silencing political dissent. China did not say when the rules would be enforced.
The plan underscores that China is not likely to blink to Google, at least not anytime soon. That leaves Google lingering in an ethical and business crossroads as the days tick from its Jan. 12 announcement that it would leave China if it had to continue censoring search results there.
Google declined Wednesday to directly address negotiations surrounding its China announcement.
“We are not commenting on what might or might not be happening,” Google spokesman Scott Rubin said in a telephone interview.
China is known for having some of the world’s strictest holds on the internet.
Last year, the Chinese government decided to mandate censorship software called Green Dam in all new PCs (to which manufacturers acquiesced). In March it blocked YouTube due to videos of anti-Tibetan violence, a block that remains. Then the government began hammering on Google, claiming the search engine was steering too many to pornography.
