Google is considering withdrawing from China

The attack was also made on about 20 large corporations operating in China and the company says it has evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

The unprecedented threat by the world biggest internet company casts China’s notorious disregard for intellectual property in an entirely new light and potentially raises a major obstacle for the country’s push for wider acceptance in the global community.

Google was criticised when it launched Google.cn in 2006 for accepting government censorship, but said this will now stop and over the next the few weeks will discuss with the Chinese government the basis on which it could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all.