Google Translate officially withdraws from the Chinese market
- Tram Ho
The Chinese website of the Google Translate app recorded 53.5 million visits from desktop and mobile users in August, according to data from Similarweb – Photo: Shutterstock
Chinese users have been unable to access Google Translate since last Saturday. When they open the app, they are redirected to a general search bar, with a message asking users to bookmark the service’s Hong Kong website, which is also not accessible on the mainland.
According to multiple user posts on a Chinese social network, the built-in translation function on Google’s Chrome browser is also not available in the country.
TechCrunch was one of the first to report on Google Translate discontinuing its service in China. Answering to the US online technology news site, Google said that the application was withdrawn from the mainland “due to low demand”.
In addition, Google did not respond further when asked on Sunday.
There are many Chinese tech companies that currently offer translation services, but the Google Translate app still has a large user base in the country. In August, the Chinese website Google Translate recorded 53.5 million visits from desktop and mobile users, according to data on web analytics platform Similarweb.
The move to shut down Google Translate in the mainland is said to reflect the US tech giant’s complicated relationship with the Chinese government.
In January 2010, Google announced its withdrawal from China, citing frequent targeted cyber attacks from the country, as well as a clash with Beijing over tightening controls on online speech. . The Chinese government later also blocked Google services in the mainland.
But in March 2017, Google Translate quietly returned to the mainland after a 7 year absence.
On a Chinese social media site over the weekend, countless users lamented the inability to use Google Translate.
“You can’t use one and you can’t use that, my job forces me to read foreign documents every day. Now I don’t know how,” one user wrote on the site. China’s Zhihu Q&A website.
Over the past several years, Google has made a series of efforts to restore its foothold in the mainland, while operating other operations outside of its core search engine business. These include services for developers, support for Chinese companies to advertise overseas online, and storage management app Files Go.
In July 2018, Google released a mini game. The game immediately became popular on Tencent Holdings’ WeChat super app. Last month, Google invested US$550 million in Chinese e-commerce maker JD.com.
In December of the same year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told a panel of US Congress that the company had “no plans” to relaunch the search engine in China.
That quelled a flurry of speculation that surfaced in August 2018 that Google planned to launch a tightly controlled version of its search engine in China.
Source : Genk