Google’s other Chinese businesses feel the heat

A day after Google announced the exit of its Chinese search operations to Hong Kong, (See: China blocks access as Google exits to HK) the Internet search giant's other businesses are facing the heat from an angry Chinese government.

Not only has China erected firewalls to block 384 million Chinese web surfers from accessing Google's Hong Kong-based internet site, it has ensured that the California-based internet firm pays a heavy price for embarrassing the government in front of the world.

Today a Chinese internet company run by one of Asia's richest men, Hong Kong-based tycoon Li Ka-shing, said that it had ended its partnership with Google.

Li Ka-shing's mainland Chinese internet firm TOM Online that runs online and mobile internet services said that it would stop using Google's search services after "the expiry of agreement."

TOM Online switched its default search engine from Google to the Chineses search engine Baidu, saying it would not like to violate any Chinese laws.

In a statement, TOM Online parent, Hong Kong-based TOM Group said, "TOM reiterated that as a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and regulations in China where we operate our businesses."

According to unconfirmed reports, China Mobile, the world's largest phone company with over 500 million subscribers is planning to end its mobile search partnership.

In January 2007, Google had teamed up with China Mobile to provide its search engine technology on China Mobile's Monternet WAP portal.

Tianya.cn, an online forum with 32 million registered users, which operates a social networking and forum service Web site in China, where Google acquired a stake in 2007, said that it is now taking over the social networking site Tianya Laiba and of Tianya Wenda, a question-and-answer site that uses the technology of Google Answers.

Tianya.cn did not reveal as to why it was making the change now.