Google, YouTube Knockoffs Hit China

Chinese government to face Google—and Goojje
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 28, 2010 8:13 AM CST
Google, YouTube Knockoffs Hit China
A computer display shows the Goojje and Youtubecn Web sites at an Internet cafe in Beijing, China, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.   (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

In a country famous for fake name-brand products, Goojje and YouTubecn may be the highest-profile imitations yet. As China battles it out with the real Google, knockoffs of both Google and YouTube have emerged on China's Internet. There's been no official response yet to the sites, but experts don't expect them to escape censorship—or intellectual property issues—for long.

YouTubecn offers content from the real YouTube, which has been blocked in China since videos of Tibetan unrest were posted on it in 2008. "I don't know if it will last long," a Chinese anti-censorship blogger told the AP. Goojje, on the other hand, is "quite clean by Chinese censorship standards," says one of its founders, who notes the site doesn't contain YouTubecn's level of sensitive material.
(More Google stories.)

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