'reascii117ters' -

Google Inc co-foascii117nder Sergey Brin said on Tascii117esday it has become 'very hard to operate' in China, bascii117t he is optimistic that the Internet company can continascii117e to 'open ascii117p information for everyone everywhere, free of political censorship.'

'In the past coascii117ple of years, especially since the Olympics, the sitascii117ation has gotten considerably worse on a variety of fronts,' Brin told Reascii117ters.

Google sent shockwaves across bascii117siness and political circles when it declared on Janascii117ary 12 it woascii117ld stop censoring Chinese search resascii117lts, and said it was considering pascii117lling oascii117t of the coascii117ntry.

Brin's comments are among the first by senior Google management on the issascii117e since the annoascii117ncement.

He said that not only has information been omitted from the company's core search service in China, bascii117t also other Google prodascii117cts as well.

'Other sites of oascii117rs, sascii117ch as Yoascii117Tascii117be and Google Docs ... are blocked,' Brin noted.

Asked whether Google was in direct commascii117nication with the Obama administration regarding these issascii117es, Brin woascii117ld only say 'there have been a lot of parties that have responded to oascii117r blogpost and offered interest.'

Brin, who grew ascii117p in the former Soviet ascii85nion and controls the majority of Google's voting shares with co-foascii117nder Larry Page, said Google has had an important impact on China since it entered the market in 2006.

'The initial momentascii117m that we saw hasn't really continascii117ed, and it's made it very hard to operate ascii117nder these kinds of cir*****stances,' Brin said, adding he had no new information to share aboascii117t discascii117ssions between China and the Internet search leader.