Google Encrypting Search To Evade Government Officials

Google has started encrypting all online searches in China as the company seeks to protect users from government surveillance.

While Google's share of the search market in China is only about 5 percent, the move seems to be a good sign for users who want their information kept private from the government. 

The Mountain View, Calif-headquartered tech giant is looking to implement encryption in all searches worldwide, which will protect sensitive search terms with indecipherable strings of letters and numbers, The Washington Post reported.

The encrypted searches should put a dent in China's infamous "Great Firewall," which censors search terms that are "politically sensitive." While officials can still block Google completely, the privacy technology will make it more difficult for them to target specific people.

"No matter what the cause is, this will help Chinese netizens to access information they've never seen before," said Percy Alpha, the co-founder of GreatFire.org, an activist group that monitors China's Great Firewall, as quoted by the Post. "It will be a huge headache for Chinese censorship authorities. We hope other companies will follow Google to make encryption by default."

After former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed widespread government surveillance on Google, Yahoo and more, companies have been striving to make users feel safe again.

"The revelations of this past summer underscored our need to strengthen our networks. Among the many improvements we've made in recent months is to encrypt Google Search by default around the world," spokeswoman Niki Christoff said in an e-mailed statement, as reported by the Post.

"This builds on our work over the past few years to increase the number of our services that are encrypted by default and encourage the industry to adopt stronger security standards."

Google has increasingly distanced itself from mainland China since 2010, when the company moved operations to Hong Kong for a more independent location. The shift occurred after officials ordered Google to censor searches or redirect them to "preferred" websites, the Post reported.