Stressing its adherence to China's laws, Hong Kong-listed TOM Group issued a statement on behalf of subsidiary TOM Online following Google's decision to stop censoring its Chinese search engine on Monday.

TOM, which runs online and mobile Internet services in mainland China, said it had stopped users from visiting its website through Google's search engine service.

"TOM reiterates that as a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and regulations in China where we operate our businesses," it said.

TOM Group is one of the key elements of the business empire of property tycoon Li, 81, who has strong ties with the Chinese government.

Li was ranked as the 14th wealthiest person in the world by Forbes magazine in March, when his net worth was 21 billion dollars.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin urged the US administration meanwhile to make the censorship row between China and his California-based company a "high priority."

"Human rights issues deserve equal time to the trade issues that are high priority now -- I hope this gets taken seriously," Brin told the British newspaper The Guardian.

"Since services and information are our most successful exports, if regulations in China effectively prevent us from being competitive, then they are a trade barrier," Brin said.

China has attacked Google for stopping censorship of its Chinese-language search engine but said there should be no broader fall-out in Sino-US ties provided the issue is not politicised in the United States.

China's state media slammed Google again on Wednesday, saying the Internet titan was "not god" and accusing it of working with US intelligence.

"For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a show of politics and values, it is still not god," said the overseas edition of the People's Daily.

"Google is not chaste when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the US intelligence and security agencies is well-known," the ruling Communist Party's official mouthpiece said.

The English-language Global Times, a subsidiary of the People's Daily, also hit out at Google, saying it had made a "huge strategic misstep in the promising Chinese market."

China Daily relished the "moment of peace" created by Google's decision, which came two months after it first said it had been the victim of cyberattacks originating in China and was no longer willing to bow to censors.

"Google's efforts to make this issue into a political spat have naturally met with strong opposition and criticism from the Chinese government and society," the newspaper said.

The paper slammed Google for offering China's 384 million web users access to "pornography and subversive content," saying the Chinese Web would "continue to grow in a cleaner and more peaceful environment" without google.cn.

A Google spokeswoman in Singapore declined to discuss TOM's decision, but said the search giant planned to continue serving mainland Chinese users by re-routing its service through Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

"We made this decision as a matter of principle, but we understand this is a complicated process with ramifications on the technology side and the business said," she said.

Elinor Leung, head of Asia Internet and telecommunications research with brokerage CLSA, said it was likely other Google partners, including phone giant China Mobile and Internet portal operator Sina, would follow TOM's lead.

"They want to play it safe," the Hong Kong-based analyst said. "China Mobile would likely terminate their mobile phone search. I think that would be the biggest loss."

Although Google's mainland Chinese sales are relatively small, China Mobile pulling away would be a big blow for the US company and present a major opportunity to China-based rivals, Leung said.

"The obvious one would be Baidu," she added, in reference to the Chinese search engine.

China Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Despite Google's promise of uncensored results, searches on the mainland of politically sensitive keywords continue to generate the browser message "cannot display the webpage" -- suggesting China's "Great Firewall" of Internet control remained intact.

earlier related report
After Google, another US Web firm cuts back in China
Washington (AFP) March 24, 2010 - Two days after Google halted censorship in China, another leading US Internet company, Go Daddy, said Wednesday it was cutting back on its activities there because of Chinese regulations.

Go Daddy, the largest Web domain name registrar in the world, is no longer registering names in China because of "chilling" new requirements imposed by the Chinese authorities, executive vice president Christine Jones said.

Jones also told a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China here that Go Daddy was one of the companies hit by Chinese-based cyberattacks in December that contributed to Google's decision to stop self censorship there.

Representative Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey, praised Google and Go Daddy for "doing the right thing in China" and urged other US companies, specifically Microsoft, to follow their lead.

"Google fired a shot heard 'round the world, and now a second American company has answered the call to defend the rights of the Chinese people," Smith said.

Google announced Monday that it had effectively closed its Chinese-language search engine in China, Google.cn, and begun redirecting mainland Chinese users to an uncensored site in Hong Kong.

Speaking at the same congressional hearing, Alan Davidson, Google's director of public policy, said the Hong Kong site is already being censored.

"We are well aware that the Chinese government can, at any time, block access to our services -- indeed we have already seen intermittent censorship of certain search queries on both Google.com.hk and Google.com," he said.

Davidson also echoed a call made by Google co-founder Sergey Brin for new rules and agreements to govern trade in the online world.

Brin said in an interview published Wednesday in the British newspaper The Guardian that Chinese regulations that prevent companies from being competitive in China should be considered a "trade barrier."

"Since services and information are our most successful exports, if regulations in China effectively prevent us from being competitive, then they are a trade barrier," Brin said.

Davidson said governments "need to develop a full set of new trade rules to address new trade barriers.

"We should continue to look for effective ways to address unfair foreign trade barriers in the online world: to use trade agreements, trade tools, and trade diplomacy to promote the free flow of information on the Internet."

Brin and Davidson's comments came after TOM Online, the Internet company owned by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, severed ties with Google, sparking concerns other companies may also pull away from the Web giant.

TOM, which runs online and mobile Internet services in mainland China, said that "as a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and regulations in China where we operate our businesses."

China has attacked Google for stopping censorship but said there should be no broader fall-out in Sino-US ties provided the issue is not politicized in the United States.

Go Daddy's Jones said the company has been authorized since April 2005 by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) to offer registration services for .cn domain names.

The .cn suffix is a Top Level Domain for China like .com and individuals or companies seeking to create a Web address are required to go through a registrar such as Go Daddy, which has 40 million domain names under management.

Jones said Go Daddy has been required by the CNNIC to collect the contact information of the individual or company registering a domain name including their full name, address, telephone number and email address.

Four months ago, however, CNNIC required registrants of new .cn names to provide color headshot photos, a Chinese business registration number and signed registration forms, she said.

She said Go Daddy is "concerned for the security of the individuals affected by CNNIC's new requirements, as well as for the chilling effect we believe the requirements will have on new .cn domain name registrations.

"For these reasons, we have decided to discontinue offering new .cn domain names at this time," Jones said. "We just made a decision that we didn't want to act as an agent of the Chinese government."

Jones also said that Go Daddy was one of more than 30 companies hit by the cyberattacks in December that Google said originated in China. "We've had a couple of dozen since the first of the year as well," Jones said.

"The Google attack was aimed at infiltrating email accounts," she said. "The attack on our system is designed to disable websites somebody doesn't like."

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