China renews Google's web license

Google announced on Friday that it has seen its Internet Content Provider (ICP license renewed by Beijing. In late June, the company made changes to its Chinese search page, no longer automatically redirecting users to Hong Kong (and uncensored search results) in a move to appease Chinese authorities.

Google had added the redirection feature to its Chinese site in March, after saying it no longer wanted to censor results in China. The change, however, really stemmed from a hacking incident against the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

On Friday, Google told Reuters that "China has renewed our 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."

China, of course, is the largest market in the world. However, in that region, Google doesn't own the search market. Rather, its the Chinese search engine Baidu that is the China search market leader.

For now, the tension between the Chinese government and Google seems to have eased. Is this the end of the story? It's likely not, as although Google does not redirect Chinese visitors automatically any longer, there is still an easy way (a link) to its Hong Kong servers. We'll see what the next chapter holds.