The Chinese government has decided to renew Google’s ICP licence for Google.cn following an interim fix whereby search was being redirected to Google.com.hk, the Hong Kong search engine.
Google implemented this redirect for Chinese users of its service following the decision by the search engine giant to cease its censoring of search results that had been in compliance with the Chinese government.
The provision of a redirect to a completely unfiltered web search was met with the possibility that the Chinese government would not renew Google’s ICP licence and thus have to shut down operations there.
Following an alternative arrangement where Chinese internet users are taken to a landing page with a link to Google.com.hk and unfiltered ‘.cn’ services, such as Google Music and Translate, the licence was renewed.
“We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP licence and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China,” said Google in an official statement.
