Google says China licence renewed by government

The Chinese government has renewed Google's licence to operate in China, the internet giant has said, ending a long-running stand-off between the two. But Google gave no details of the licence renewal.

There had been speculation China would revoke the licence after Google began redirecting Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong. But last month, in a conciliatory move towards Beijing, Google said it would no longer automatically redirect users.

Instead, Chinese users would be sent to a "landing page", which would send them to the Hong Kong site.

"We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP (internet content provider) licence and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China," Google's lawyer David Drummond said in an e-mailed statement.

Google's share price rose 2.8% in Friday trading following the announcement.

On Thursday, Google boss Eric Schmidt said that he expected the Chinese government to renew the licence.

"Our operations in China are completely at the discretion of the Chinese government," Mr Schmidt has said.