Google appears to have won a renewal of its China license.
The search firm has posted an ICP (internet content provider) number on its China search page, along with fresh links to music, translation and shopping.
The page had not displayed a number since Google’s previous license expired on June 30.
Google’s China PR chief Wang Jinhong toldBeijing News that Google had been awarded its license in 2007 for five years, but that it was subject to annual review.
Google announced in January that it would no longer censor its China searches, and in March began redirecting them to Hong Kong, which offers unfiltered search results.
Last week, just prior to the expiry of its license, it changed this so that search queries were redirected to Hong Kong only after users clicked on the google.cn page.
Google’s US head office was not available to comment because of the July 4 public holiday.
While google.com.hk can offer uncensored search results, the government’s own extensive filtering system will screen out sensitive topics.
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