Google 'may pull out of China after Gmail cyber attack'

Internet giant Google has said it may end its operations in China following a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack originating from the country.

It did not accuse Beijing directly, but said it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine - google.cn.

This could result in closing the site, and its Chinese offices, Google said.

Chinese rival Baidu called the move "hypocritical" and financially driven. In US trade on Wednesday Baidu's shares were up 13%, and Google's down 0.57%.

Google said the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were the primary target of the attack, which occurred in December.

The search engine has now said it will hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering had yet been made.

Google launched google.cn in 2006, agreeing to some censorship of the search results, as required by the Chinese government.

It currently holds around a third of the Chinese search market, far behind Baidu with more than 60%. more........