China has renewed Google’s Internet Content Provider (ICP) license, allowing the search giant to operate for another year and the renewed license also allows the company to expand its limited suite of services. The news agency added the ministry ordered the adjustments after some firms had changed shareholding structures without permission and since its high-profile dispute with China early last year, the Internet firm has been involved in other skirmishes with the local government. Google continues to do business in China earning revenue from Chinese advertisers eager to reach customers abroad……………….
Chinese authorities have renewed Google‘s license for another year, as the search engine’s beleaguered local market share continues to wane and Google may be the leading search engine in the world, but it’s the underdog in China after butting heads with the government on numerous occasions over the past two years. “We can confirm that the government has renewed our ICP license,” Google said in an e-mailed statement, without elaborating. The company owns the world’s most popular search engine. Google has been losing market share in China’s search market to Baidu Inc. since January 2010, when the Mountain View, California-based company said it was no longer willing to comply with China’s requirements for Websites to self-censor content. Two months later, Google redirected Chinese users to an unfiltered site in Hong Kong. China, the world’s largest Internet market with 485 million Web users at the end of June, bans pornography, gambling and content critical of the ruling Communist Party. It already blocks Google’s YouTube site as well as social-networking websites run by Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.
