Report: Google-China announcement by Monday

Google may reveal as soon as next Monday whether it will cease its search business in China, according to reports.

An unnamed company source told the China Business News on Friday the announcement next week was imminent. However, Google officials declined to confirm or deny reports to The Hill, noting they would not comment in advance about discussions with the Chinese government.

Separately, an independent contractor also told the newspaper that Google would cease search operations as early as April 10 -- almost three months after the search company first discovered hackers allegedly based in China targeted human rights activists using its Gmail service.

"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the unnamed agent told the newspaper.

Nevertheless, both yet unconfirmed bits of news seem to contradict recent reports that Google and China were nearing an amenable resolution to their recent string of disputes.

On the surface, their standoff stems from a January 12 cyberattack on Google, which China has routinely denied it either authorized or assisted.

But the security breach has also re-opened countless other, once-closed wounds in the search engine's tenuous relationship with Beijing, especially the debate over China's strict Internet censorship rules.

Google announced almost immediately after discovering the January cyberattack that it would cease to filter its search results, in stark violation of Chinese law.

Ultimately, the company has yet to formalize its policy shift. But Google executives have nonetheless stressed they have no plans to renege on that decision -- even if that meant Google had to withdraw from China's lucrative search market indefinitely.

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