Google vs. China Round 2: China Underlines Its Laws, Google Stops Android Roll-Out

The political/ethical/financial spat between Google and the Chinese authorities has entered its second phase: The Chinese government is underlining its legal position, and Google's responding by postponing the launch of Android phones.

When Google announced it was going to uncensor its Google.cn search engine last week, it came as a surprise--not many organizations have taken such a bold stance against the human-rights suppression of the Chinese authorities. The move was celebrated all over the Web, even while Google's real motivations weren't too deeply investigated. If Google does pull out of the nation, its slightly relaxed stance on Internet censorship will be lost: Chinese Net users will only have the more popular (and more highly censored) government-sponsored search engine Baidu to use. It seems that the Chinese sensors were pushing Google to up its self-censorship to match Baidu's policies--and this also played into Google's decision.

But if Google pulled out of China, there were also worries about the future of the Android smartphone OS in the nation--and that worry has now come true, with the AP reporting that Google has "postponed" plans for its Android phone there.