Google risks China's ire with slap to censorship

Google said it was "entirely legal" for it to re-route traffic to an uncensored Hong Kong site.

A former British colony, Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China and enjoys more freedom, including an uncensored Internet, than mainland China.

However, Google acknowledged that the Chinese government could at any time block access to the services, which include Google search, news and images.

Analysts said Google's other business units, such as its Android platform, may be at risk in China, if the mobile phones offer Google search services that reroute to Hong Kong.

"The most important thing is whether in their search results in China, there is content that is not in line with China's policy. If there still is, I think that their businesses will have an unstable outlook," said Cao Junbo, chief analyst at iResearch.