Google Is Accused of Lacking the Proper License in China

After being harshly criticized by westerners for accepting censorship on its Chinese site, Google is now accused by the local newspapers that it doesn't have the proper license to operate on the Chinese market.

Reuters quotes Beijing News as saying that Google.cn didn't get the ICP ((Internet content provider) license, which is required in China.

"Under China's policy framework for the Internet, Google.cn is clearly unlawful," the China Business Times wrote.

Google denies the accusations, a spokeswoman saying that the company is using the license of its partner site, Ganji.com, and that this practice is not uncommon.

But the absence of the license is not the issue debated by the Chinese journalists, who are also lambasting the site's policy of informing the user whenever a result is being censored. According to the China Business Times, this is not a good thing and it leads to conflicts over censorship.

"Does a business operating in China need to constantly tell customers that it's abiding by the laws of the land?", the newspaper cited by Reuters says.

Paradoxically, Google uses this excuse whenever the company is accused of censoring the results.

If the US Congress approves the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006, the Chinese won't have to worry about the US companies' license, for the simple reason that they won't be allowed to own a web site in China.