22 March 2010 | Author: J. Morton News Editor

Google looks set to close its China portal

The uncertainty surrounding Google's business plan in the growing Chinese market is poised to end soon, with some outlets saying the search engine will announce its intentions as early as this week.

While talks continue between the Mountain View giant and the Chinese government, it looks unlikely that a mutually agreeable compromise will be made.

The row began in January of this year, when Google said it refused to continue to censor Chinese search results, forcing a showdown with the People's Republic. The Chinese government is known to limit access to certain information available on the internet, with popular Western sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter blocked throughout the country.

The most discussed outcome of the decision is whether the internet giant will pull completely out of China, and what implication that might carry for its services, its Chinese employees and other Western enterprises in general.

China has most recently lobbed allegations of Google's imperialistic bent and suggested it has ties to the US government.

"Google's relations with the US government cannot be deeper," read a China Daily article.

Google, which has remained silent on speculations about its next move, contends that the company must tread cautiously to safeguard its employees in China against possible retribution from the government, according to the Times.

The number of employees includes 600 sales agents and engineers in the country, the loss of whom would affect services even on the parent page of google.com, according to the financial times. Other possible scenarios speculated involve censoring Google results as a whole, as well as possible consequences for mobile handsets using the Android software.

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