By Lars Våge

When you do a search in the new, censored version of Google in China, you find a message at the bottom of the results page that translates like this:

“In accordance with local law, regulations, and government policies, a portion of search results are not shown.”

Google.cn has been called the Eunuch Version. Google Blogscoped shows just how castrated the Chinese version of Google’s search engine is.

Read on for reactions and analyses from blogs and web sites all over the world.

Xiao Qiang has translated two Chinese bloggers’ reactions at the collaborative blog China Digital Times.

Nart Villeneuve tells how the censorship works at OpenNet Initiative’s blog for investigating state-based Internet filtering.

Reporters without borders call Google hypocrites: “a black day for freedom of expression in China.”

Amnesty International is disappointed. In a press release they state: “The Internet heralded unfettered access to information in a borderless world. Instead, companies are helping governments build borders to prevent their citizens from accessing information.”

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch tries to understand and explain: “Google isn’t running for the cover of protecting the user experience by omitting some news sites. It’s flat out saying that the Chinese government wants it to do censoring in news search, web search and other areas and that Google will comply.”

Jeremy Goldkorn, blogging at Danwei, feels that the rage against Google is misdirected and some other English language blogs from Hong Kong and China are of the same opinion.

Google is not evil but perhaps not so smart either according to Asiapundit, who predicts that the censoring can prove to be a mistake even in financial terms in the long run.

The blogger EastSouthWestNorth thinks that more important things are happening in China right now. Roland Soong aka ESWN in Hong Kong, who translates articles from Chinese media to English jokingly calls the whole thing a “storm outside a tea-cup”.

Some Chinese citizens feel a censored Google is better than no Google at all while westerners with high ideals are aflame with holy wrath. What to think about it all?

Google’s yielding is not a pretty thing, but Google is not the only search engine that is aiding the suppression of Chinese citizens. Those of us who thought that Google were the good guys just have to think again.

The American blogger Imagethief, who is living in China, has published a post with a somewhat strange title: In praise of Google in China. Here is an interesting quote from this post: “Filtering keywords is bad, but it is not in the same league as becoming an unwitting tool in the imprisoning of dissidents.” This is obviously a reference to Yahoo’s actions regarding journalist Shi Tao.

Rebecca McKinnon at Global Voices has four suggestions to how Google can avoid complete castration as she so eloquently puts it.

We’ll let Roland Soong have the last word: “Whether Google is evil or not means nothing to the Chinese Internet users; that would be an American problem. What matters to the Chinese Internet users is whether google.cn will make a material difference to their Internet experience, one way or the other. So when anyone wants to propose something or the other (like boycotting Google to force them to scrap the google.cn service), please explain why the Chinese Internet users will be better off as a result under your specified criteria”.

It’s not all black or white.

[On the same theme: Political cartoonist Mark Fiore has released a thought provoking animation called iRepress regarding the three major search engines and their relationship with China. The Editors.]

This article was originally published in Internetbrus, a Swedish blog on search engines and Internet searching that has been online since early 2001. It is written for both searchers and educators.

Internetbrus is owned and edited by Lars Våge and Lars Iselid. Lars Våge works as a librarian at Mitthögskolan and a programmer for JL Informationsteknik. Lars Iselid is a librarian at the Umeå University Library, freelance journalist for the computer magazine

Datormagazin. He can be found blogging under the pseudonym Cyrille at Iaslash.org.

Lars and Lars are co-authors of a book on Internet research: Informationssökning på Internet.