US to officially slam Beijing over Google attack

Escalating the 'Google war' between the Chinese government and the internet search giant to a new level, the US government is preparing to issue a formal protest to Beijing, and demand an explanation for the cyber attack on Google Inc that the company says originated in China.
''We will be issuing a formal demarche (diplomatic protest) in Beijing,'' likely early next week, ''to express US unease about the incident'', state department spokesman Philip J Crowley said in Washington on Friday.

Google said on 11 January that it would stop censoring results on its search engine in China, as required by the country's government, because of ''highly sophisticated'' attacks on its website and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists.

In a rare disclosure by a major firm, Google announced on Tuesday that its "corporate infrastructure" had been hacked and its intellectual property stolen. It said that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists in China, Europe and the United States were also penetrated.

Google noted that the attacks targeted at least 20 other companies in the technology, finance and chemicals sectors. Reports say that Yahoo Inc, Google's fellow-US rival, had noticed it had been a target of Chinese hacking attacks, prior to Google's public acknowledgment. However, Yahoo has not given any official confirmation of this.

It is also reported that Google approached other companies to seek their help in drawing attention to the cyber attacks, and was frustrated by their reluctance to come forward.

Google itself has gone so far as to say that it may end its operations in China, the world's largest emerging market, if the issue is not resolved. However, the company denied local media reports that it has decided to immediately shut Google.cn, its Chinese search engine, and close its China office. (See: Google denies media reports of shutting China operations, claims business "as usual")