China Unicom

In light of what has developed recently in China with regards to Google, unfiltered search and the lack thereof, China Unicom has dropped Google as a search partner from its forthcoming Android based smartphones.

In the past days Google has defied the Chinese government somewhat, forwarding Google.cn to Google Kong Kong as an ‘entirely legal’ way of bringing about unfiltered search results to Chinese residents. However, this whole series of events has not sat well with the Chinese government, and Unicom’s president Lu Yimin has said,

“We are willing to work with any company that abides by Chinese law…we don’t have any co-operation with Google currently.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, “although it is a distant second on computer searches, Google is nearly tied for first with China’s Baidu Inc. for market share in China’s nascent mobile-search sector.” It will be interesting to see if other Chinese networks follow China Unicom’s actions.

[Via LA Times]