China has long enacted a policy of forcing web sites to filter their content or risk being blocked. That means if a site, let's say google, does not comply with China's demands then nobody in the country can access your site anymore - you lose an entire market.

Unfortunately google and other search engines ran scared when China made it's demands. Their engines are filtered for any content China deems dangerous - information about Chinese policy, democracy, etc. is all filtered out so the people don't see it.

What Google and Yahoo don't realize is that they are as valuable to China as China is to them. They didn't properly use the negotiating power they had. They sold out to the man, when they probably didn't have to.

Wikipedia went another route. When China asked them to filter their content for Chinese users, they told them nicely that it went against the entire purpose of Wikipedia, against their morals, and was just not going to happen. China responded by quickly blocking them. No more wikipedia in China.

This causes a few problems. First of all, China knows it's people are going to use Wikipedia anyway. All these people automatically become criminals as soon as Wikipedia is blocked, and clogs up the Chinese legal system. If everyone is a criminal, than the laws will just stop mattering to people (remember prohibition). Second, and most important, China needs to keep the economic advantage of having important resources like Wikipedia available to it's citizens. They simply can't block half the Internet and expect to stay competitive with other countries.

So today Wikipedia was unblocked by China. This is a huge win for the citizens across the pond. This means the Chinese government has actually made a concession and given their people access to potentially harmful information.

I hope the Google and Yahoo will change their policies and stop supporting governments that don't give their people basic rights. If only Google and Yahoo had the confidence in their service to realize that China NEEDS it. I hope all the search engines learn a lesson and stop taking their policies from foreign countries.