Google Expects China License Renewal
Google Inc. (GOOG) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Thursday that Google believes it will resolve its ongoing fight with the Chinese government over operating in the country and dismissed a range of probes facing the company over privacy and regulatory issues.
Addressing a topic that has been hanging over the company for months—the fate of its business in China, he said the company now expects to have its operating license from the Chinese government renewed, allowing it to continue to offer search services to Chinese users.
His comments, during an informal briefing at the Allen & Co., conference here, come as the Mountain View, Calif., company has been restructuring its Chinese business for many months after deciding to stop censoring its Chinese-language search services earlier this year.
After it stopped censoring, it began directing queries from mainland China to a version of its search service it doesn’t censor hosted off the mainland. But after the Chinese government indicated it wouldn’t renew its license if it continued that practice, Google stopped the automatic redirect, leading to the current standoff.
