Google search was yanked out of China a year ago. Recently, Chinese users have been seeing slowed Gmail service (which Google claims is the result of the Chinese government tampering; the Chinese government says they have nothing to do with it), and now, it looks like Google Maps is getting the boot from the country. China’s State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping was supposed to have received an application from Google, and the agency says it hasn’t received one. From Bloomberg: “China introduced a new licensing system for Internet mapping services in May to “address illegal practices” and an “inadequate awareness of national security,” the official Xinhua News agency reported March 21. Since 2008, online mapping services have committed more than 1,000 violations including unauthorized disclosure of confidential information and mistakes in drawing the country’s border, Xinhua reported.”
For Google’s part, the company says “We are examining the regulations to understand their impact on our maps products in China.” Nonetheless, tension between China and Google is growing. From Bloomberg: “A March 4 opinion piece in the official People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, compared Google with the British East India Company, whose sales of opium in the country was the root of two 19th-century conflicts.”
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