BEIJING, July 9 (UPI) -- Chinese regulators said they will not shut down Google Inc. or Microsoft Corp.'s Internet mapping services.
"We will not investigate or shut down the Web sites that have submitted their applications and are under examination," the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping said, China Daily reported Saturday.
The statement referred to companies that had submitted applications before the July 1 deadline, which included the two U.S. companies.
In June, Chinese regulators relaxed their standard of having foreign companies that operate online mapping services in the country be controlled by a domestic firm. Google China is a 50-50 partnership, the newspaper said.
Marsha Wang, a spokeswoman for Google China, did not comment on the issue but repeated a previous statement.
"We're in discussions with the government about how we can offer a mapping product in China," she said.
