* GoDaddy says it has repelled dozens of cyber attacks
* Google sees some censorship of searches redirected to HK
* Lawmakers laud Google, GoDaddy actions (Adds Dorgan, Smith, Kaufman comments)
By John Poirier
WASHINGTON, March 24 (Reuters) - Internet domain companyGoDaddy.com said it planned to stop registering domain names inChina, joining Google Inc (GOOG.O) in protesting cyber attacksand censorship in that country.
"We believe that many of the current abuses of the Internetoriginating in China are due to a lack of enforcement againstcriminal activities by the Chinese government," ChristineJones, Go Daddy Group Inc general counsel, told a congressionalcommission hearing on Wednesday.
She said GoDaddy had repelled dozens of extremely seriousattacks that appear to have originated in China in the firstthree months of 2010.
Jones said GoDaddy, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, wouldcontinue to manage .cn domain names of existing customers.
"Our experience has been that China is focused on using theInternet to monitor and control the legitimate activities ofits citizens, rather than penalizing those who commitInternet-related crimes," Jones said.
Google said in January that it had sustained a hackingattack that it said originated in China. This week Google shutits Chinese portal over censorship and said it planned to phaseout deals to provide filtered search services to other onlineor mobile firms in China.
Google said visitors to its China search engine, google.cn,were being redirected to Hong Kong-based google.com.hk.
"I compliment Google and I compliment GoDaddy," saidDemocratic Senator Byron Dorgan, chairman of theCongressional-Executive Commission on China, which focuses onhuman rights in China.
Republican Representative Chris Smith said GoDaddy"s actionwas "a powerful sign that American IT companies want to do theright thing in repressive countries."
Google told the commission it was seeing intermittentcensorship of some Internet queries from mainland China thathad been rerouted to Hong Kong.
"We are well aware that the Chinese government can, at anytime, block access to our services," Alan Davidson, Google"sdirector of public policy, said in prepared testimony.
"Indeed we have already seen intermittent censorship ofcertain search queries on both google.com.hk and google.com."
Internet censorship has drawn increased attention from U.S.lawmakers since Google"s spat with China began and a policyinitiative by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton topromote global Internet freedom.
"This is a foreign policy priority of the United States,"said Democratic Senator Ted Kaufman, co-chair of the Senate"snewly formed Global Internet Freedom Caucus. (Reporting by John Poirier; additional reporting by DianeBartz; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
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