After months drama, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google (News - Alert) today announced that China's government renewed its operating license - and that Google will soon quit redirecting Chinese users to its uncensored Hong Kong search engine.

 

"The rocky relationship between Google and Beijing had cast doubt whether the license would be renewed," reported TMCnet contributing editor Lance Whitney, in an article published by CNET.

 

But whether this is actually a victory depends on one's perspective.

 

Who doesn't remember, back in January, when Google triumphantly declared it would cease censoring search results in China? Or how it accused Beijing hackers as the culprits behind cyber attacks?

 

In the least, it's sweet relief for Google.

 

"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," David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, stated on Google's blog. "Ever since we launched Google.cn, our search engine for mainland Chinese users, we have done our best to increase access to information while abiding by Chinese law. This has not always been an easy balance to strike, especially since our January announcement that we were no longer willing to censor results on Google.cn."

Drummond noted that Google currently automatically redirects everyone using Google.cn to Google.com.hk, its Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for our users and for Google, he added.

"However, it's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable-and that if we continue redirecting users our Internet Content Provider license will not be renewed (it's up for renewal on June 30)," Drummond continued. "Without an ICP license, we can't operate a commercial website like Google.cn-so Google would effectively go dark in China."

There was no immediate word from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology about the license renewal, Whitney reported.