The move comes in cooperation with Google itself. Months ago, officials in Beijing ordered Google to institute an adult filter on its Chinese-language portal, Google.cn.
Engineers for the search-engine giant built the filter themselves, which has now received the official thumbs-up from the Chinese government. The filter had been in place for some time without any word of approval.
Chinese citizens can still use Google.com to find adult results, but for those with no English skills, Google.cn remains their sole access to the powerful search-engine.
In addition to censoring adult search results, Google has blocked results for other search strings that might upset the local government. Search results for “Tiananmen” receive a scrubbing before being deposited on users’ computers, and a search for human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong returns no results at all.
"[Google] should strictly comply with local laws, regulations and policies," said a spokesperson for the Mountain View, Calif.-based company.
But even though they’re making the local government happy, Google isn’t pleasing the locals, who have elevated competing search-engine Baidu.com to the top slot in China.
