The U.S. government is continuing confidential talks with China in response to the Google-hacking incident, with a State Department official meeting the Chinese ambassador in Washington, D.C. Thursday night, but it has not yet filed a formal protest.

A State Department spokesman on Friday said that it was "difficult" to answer whether the disclosure of the electronic intrusions, which have reportedly targeted other companies including Yahoo, Symantec, and some defense contractors, has damaged the U.S.-China relationship. (See a CNET News roundup of coverage.)

"We are prepared to work through this issue as long … Read more

A day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton formally denounced Internet censorship, China warned that the new U.S. stance could hurt relations between the two countries.

"The U.S. has criticized China's policies to administer the Internet and insinuated that China restricts Internet freedom...This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-U.S. relations," a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement quoted by Reuters, the BBC, and others. (Here is a Google translation of the statement.)

Clinton spoke Thursday, about a week after Google declared it no longer would censor search results … Read more

WASHINGTON--U.S. Internet companies might soon need to find a new strategy for dealing with China.

In announcing that it is now U.S. policy to advocate a free and open Internet around the world, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday essentially dared U.S. companies to follow Google's lead and put an end to their complicit censorship of Internet content. Google has said it will shut down its Chinese search engine if it can't find a way to offer an uncensored version under Chinese law, and while no one else has jumped on that bandwagon, … Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court's sweeping ruling on Thursday that invalidated large chunks of campaign finance law arose in part from an unlikely source: the emergence of Facebook, YouTube, and blogs, and the decline of traditional media outlets.

A 5-4 majority concluded that technological changes have chipped away at the justification for a law that allows individuals to create a blog with opinions about a political candidate--but threatens the ACLU, the National Rifle Association, a labor union, or a corporation with felony charges if they do the same.

The now-invalidated law "would seem to ban a blog post … Read more

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is preparing to deliver a major speech on Thursday elevating the importance of Internet freedom and placing the influence of the United States' diplomacy behind efforts to protect it, according to multiple people who have been briefed on the speech's contents.

Clinton's speech at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., is intended to announce that support for online liberty and press freedom will become a State Department priority and will address the importance of cybersecurity, people who have been briefed said. For example, the U.S. could be prepared to require countries … Read more

Google's recent turmoil in China has prompted the company to halt the launch of two Android smartphones in the Chinese market.

The company told Dow Jones Newswire on Tuesday that it has indefinitely postponed the Chinese debut of two mobile phones manufactured by Samsung and Motorola. The phones, which were to be sold by provider China Unicom, were initially set to hit China on Wednesday.

An unnamed source told Dow Jones that Google felt it would be "irresponsible" to unveil the phones now, in light of the company's current situation in China. No details were given … Read more

The U.S. government plans to ask China for a formal explanation regarding the cyberattacks against Google and other U.S. companies, according to a State Department spokesman.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had already hinted at such a move in a statement she released when Google first revealed the attacks. "We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early this week," AFP quoted State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley as saying during a briefing Friday.

Google's disclosure of attacks that are thought to … Read more

In the immortal words of Mick Jones, "If I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double."

Executives at U.S. Internet companies are humming The Clash today, now that Google has forced a discussion about China. However, they aren't ready to put the situation in such stark terms as the gentlemen from London (should they stay or should they go?) by following the lead of Google, which declared on Tuesday that it would exit the Chinese market, unless it was allowed to offer an uncensored search engine following cyberattacks on Google and … Read more

Google no longer intends to censor search results in China, and if the Chinese government balks, it may take its servers and go home.

The stunning change in Google's policy toward doing business in China--which was always a complicated dance--came after Google discovered that it and other businesses were the victims of "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack" aimed at gathering information about human rights activists. It is not clear whether the Chinese government was behind the attacks, which Google said in a blog post were also directed against other U.S. companies.

Adobe Systems later confirmed … Read more