Google has finally closed down its censored Google.cn search engine.  As we reported, the company announced in a January 12 blog post that following a series of intrusions into its systems by Chinese hackers, it would no longer cooperate with the Chinese government’s mandate that Google censor its Chinese site to remove results the government didn’t approve of, from the words “freedom” and “democracy” to the Tiananmen Square protests, Dalai Lama, and more.  Over the last two months, the company has been in negotiations with the Chinese government, which is, unsurprisingly, not willing to budge.

Google just put up another blog post announcing that it has shut down Google.cn and is redirecting users to a simplified Chinese (the language used on the mainland) version of Google.com.hk (the Hong Kong site, normally uses the traditional Chinese script).  As we mentioned in January, there is much speculation as to the reasoning behind Google’s decision.  After all, while the company does claim “don’t be evil” as a motto, it’s been censoring Chinese search results for nearly four years now, so why the sudden change of heart?

Read on to find out.

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