Back in January, Google made its “new approach to China” and the company sounded if the company might leave the country within the month. Well, this never happened. But according to testimony given today before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Google hasn’t forgotten its ultimatum.
Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, spoke about China, the Internet and censorship by saying, “The attack on our corporate infrastructure and the surveillance it uncovered – as well as attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web even further – led us to conclude that we are no longer willing to censor our results in China and we are currently reviewing our options.”
Wong then argued, “This decision is in keeping with out pledge when we launched Google.cn that we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. As we stated then, if we determine that we are unable to achieve our objectives, we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
Wong didn’t provide any sort of timetable about when Google will reach a decision.