It seems that the Chinese government has been attacking the digital accounts of numerous human-rights leaders, and other political dissidents, through Google and many other online services. After the internet search giant found out about the attacks, they posted a public response outlining the attacks and the possibility of shutting down services in China.

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Hopefully this will have an enormous impact on the Western view of Chinese politics and human-rights in the upcoming year. Google has the visibility, and the weight, to push people's eyes in a certain direction.

via BoingBoing