Internet search engine Google has got permission Friday to maintain its website in China and keep its toehold in the world's most populous nation after bowing to pressure to eliminate a virtual detour around the country's online censorship requirements.
Renewal had been in question after Google began automatically redirecting users in China to an uncensored Hong Kong search site. But the company dismantled the virtual bridge to Hong Kong last week after regulators objected to the sleight of hand and threatened to revoke its Internet license.
"We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license, and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China," Google's top lawyer, David Drummond, said in a statement.
The company's one-sentence statement gave no details. Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne said information on what services Google will offer in China would be released in coming weeks.
There was no immediate statement on the website of China's Internet regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Google said in January it no longer wanted to comply with rules requiring it to censor search results after it traced hacking attacks to China. The announcement embarrassed Chinese leaders, prompting questions about whether they might punish the company by shutting it out of China, where Google has a lucrative advertising business and a fledgling mobile phone operation.
In March, Google shut down its mainland China-based site, which had excluded from its results sites that could not be reached from China. It redirected users to the uncensored Hong Kong site instead.
Losing the China license would have been a significant setback for Google, even though China will only account for an estimated $250 million to $600 million of the company's projected $28 billion in revenue this year. China already has nearly 400 million Web surfers and usage is expected to rise for years to come.
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