Google Rolls Out Country Specific Censorship
With it's announcement of country-specific censorship last week, Twitter has met with a range of reactions from a outrage and a boycott on January 28th to praise that the move will help protect free speech around the globe.
In a support post related to upcoming changes to blogger that was last updated January 9, 2011, Google has announced that they will follow suite:
Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or "ccTLD." For example, if you're in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader’s current location.
The post goes on to say that the country-code top level domain will allow them to:
Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.
Like Twitter, Google offers advice on how to circumvent the censorship, telling people how to either choose a specific country or avoid redirection altogether.
Google already publishes a transparency report, which allows anyone to see details about take-down requests from around the globe.
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