[Iran Press TV Latest] Internet search giant Google has stopped providing service in China over 'rows' with the Beijing government, a move seen as a step toward quitting world's largest online market. After months of disputes with Beijing over purported cyber attacks on Google's email service, Gmail, from China, the search engine gianr announced Monday that it has stopped censoring search results on its China search engine, and decided to provide Chinese Internet-surfers with anti-government material via redirecting Chinese searches through its Hong Kong server.
"On January 12, we announced on that Google and more than twenty other US companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China," Google wrote on its official blog.
The Internet search provider claimed China "routinely accessed Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists" through phishing, pharming and placing malicious software programs on theirs computers.
The world's number one Internet search engine said the decision comes after it failed to reach an agreement with the Chinese government for permission to operate an uncensored search site in the country.
The move has drawn the ire of Chinese officials, with China's State Council Information Office, a regulatory body on information access, condemning the decision and dubbing it "violation" of prior negotiations with the California-based company.
US authorities have also reacted to the latest row, with the White House expressing "disappointment" for a lack of headway in China-Google talks.
Google is the second-largest search engine in mainland China, after Baidu.