An update for our customers on Google Apps and China

Yesterday, we stopped censoring our search services – Google Search, Google News, and Google Images – on our Chinese domain, www.google.cn. This makes good on our commitment to stop censoring search results in China, and you can read more here. In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and maintain a sales presence there. We’d like to share some additional information on how this may affect your employees that use Google Apps within mainland China.

First, we very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that China could at any time block access to our services in mainland China. We will be carefully monitoring access issues and we have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that you can see which Google services are available in China.

Note that you can continue to view performance information for Google Apps services outside of China on the Google Apps Status Dashboard.

Second, it is important to know that there are several networking configurations and associated technologies available to help ensure ongoing access to your critical business services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. These network configurations, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, secure shell (SSH) tunneling, or using a proxy server, are already in place by many businesses with worldwide operations who serve their users from various locations. Companies should consult their own technical, legal and policy personnel to find a solution that works best for them.

Finally, we do not host any Google Apps services, or your data, in mainland China. Moreover, Google employees in mainland China do not have access to any Apps systems or customer data.

We recognize that these issues are not unique to Google; many technology companies serving users in China face challenges in providing access to their services, and we don't see yesterday’s news changing how we serve you moving forward.

Feel free to contact us with any questions via our support channels. Thanks for reading.

Posted by the Google Apps team