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Imitation websites emerge in China

Imitation websites of both Google and YouTube have emerged in China as the country faces off against the real Google over its local operations.

YouTubecn.com offers videos from the real YouTube, which is blocked in China.

The Google imitation is called Goojje and includes a plea for the US-based web giant not to leave China, after it threatened this month to do so in a dispute over web censorship and cyber attacks.

The separate projects went up within a day of each other in mid-January, just after Google's threat to leave.

"This should be an issue with Google's intellectual property, also with China censorship," said Xiao Qiang, director of the Berkeley China Internet Project at the University of California-Berkeley. "I cannot see how these sites can survive very long without facing these two issues."

Both sites were still working. It wasn't clear what Chinese authorities would do with them, if anything.

China's National Copyright Administration has been cracking down on illegally run websites and this month issued a code of ethics, but no statement was posted on its website about the Google and YouTube imitations.

Google had little comment. "The only comment I can give you right now is just to confirm that we're not affiliated," spokeswoman Jessica Powell said in an email.

China is famous for its fake products, but this is the first time such prominent sites have been copied in this way, Xiao said.

The creators of the two sites could not be reached.

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Source : Google

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