Viet Son Net

Operator China Unicom said it will remove Google’s mobile search services from phones running the digital services provider’s Android mobile OS, a direct response to Google’s decision to defy Chinese censorship mandates by redirecting users to its uncensored Hong Kong website. China Unicom, the nation’s second largest mobile carrier, said its Android manufacturer partners will instead determine which search tool is embedded on their phones. “We are willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law… we don’t have any cooperation with Google currently,” said China Unicom president Lu Yimin. China Unicom’s decision follows on the heels of similar statements by China Mobile, its largest competitor–the company offers a host  of Android-based smartphones, but last week, chairman Wang Jianzhou played down its ties to Google, saying that the two did not have an exclusive relationship.

According to Chinese government data, the nation boasts 745 million mobile subscribers and 384 million active mobile web users, presenting a massive revenue opportunity for service providers and manufacturers alike. Earlier this month, with the feud between Google and Chinese lawmakers escalating, Motorola announced an agreement with Microsoft to deploy the software giant’s Bing search and mapping services across Android-powered smartphones sold in the Chinese market, effectively reducing its dependence on Google mobile services in China or elsewhere.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told The Wall Street Journal that he pushed the company to abandon its Chinese search engine because China’s efforts to censor the web recalled the “totalitarianism” he faced as a child growing up in the Soviet Union. China has “made great strides against poverty and whatnot,” Brin said. “But nevertheless, in some aspects of their policy, particularly with respect to censorship, with respect to surveillance of dissidents, I see the same earmarks of totalitarianism, and I find that personally quite troubling.”

For more on China Unicom’s Android moves:
- read this Financial Times article