BBC News
Google has stopped censoring its search results in China, ignoring warnings by the country's authorities.
The US company said its Chinese users would be redirected to the uncensored pages of its Hong Kong website.
In January, Google had complained about a "sophisticated cyber attack originating from China".
Chinese government officials had warned Google repeatedly that it would face consequences if it did not comply with the country's censorship rules.
In a blog post, the company said the Chinese government had been "crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement".
Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, said that providing "uncensored search" from Google.com.hk was "a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China".
"We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services," Mr Drummond wrote in the blog post. "We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China."
On Sunday, state media in China had attacked Google for what they described as the company's "intricate ties" with the US government.
Google provided US intelligence agencies with a record of its search engine results, the state-run news agency Xinhua said.
While Google is the world's most popular search engine, it is a distant number two in the Chinese market, which is dominated by Baidu.
However, because of the size and growth rate of China's internet population, any loss of business there is likely to harm Google's growth prospects.
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