Compromising on censorship was one thing; being an unwitting accomplice to Chinese government surveillance was another. When Google entered China, Brin and Page had intentionally decided not to make its email or blogging platforms available to Chinese customers, out of fear that they would be forced to turn over a user’s personal information to the secret police. Two years earlier Yahoo had handed over a Chinese journalist’s personal information to the state, after he leaked details on Chinese press restrictions to a prodemocracy site run by Chinese exiles in New York. Yahoo’s former customer
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