BEIJING -- Just how angry is China at Google? Internet users behind the government's Great Firewall may have just found out: All searches on Google appeared to be blocked starting late Tuesday afternoon, the latest indication that tensions between the Internet giant and the Chinese government have mounted since Google shut down its mainland search engine earlier this month.
Google said that “lots” of users in China have been unable to search on Google.com.hk today because of a change on Google’s part. The company said it is looking into resolving the issue. Google commented in an e-mail.
What a great show!
Google and China, much better than Friends
pontifex
5:34 pm on Mar 30, 2010 (gmt 0)
and i see a slight dip in revenue for software sales! about 7% less today at this time of the day... is that connected or not? not sure yet! P!
zeus
5:58 pm on Mar 30, 2010 (gmt 0)
well of cause we thinks thats some weird stuff, but there country there rules, so when you do bizz there its by there terms and thats also ok.
Google has said that a problem that meant that Chinese users of its service were unable to access search results on 30 March was due to a technical error.
Many reports had speculated that the block may have been put in place by the Chinese government.
A spokesperson for the firm said the "lots of users" had been unable to access the Hong Kong site today.
"This blockage seems to have been triggered by a change on Google's part," the spokesperson said.
Google’s search engine was inaccessible in much of China late Tuesday. The exact cause of the disruption was not fully clear, but it led to speculation that the site was being blocked by the country’s Internet censors.
Google itself added to the confusion, first saying that the problem was the result of a change it made to the string of characters it sends along with search requests, which may run afoul of China’s powerful Internet filter.
Later in the day, Google said that it had actually made that change a week ago, so the disruption must have been caused by changes on China’s end. It also said that by early Wednesday morning its service appeared to have been restored.
bill
6:52 am on Mar 31, 2010 (gmt 0)
It appears that the BBC scooped the NY Times on this one, eh?
It wasn't a block, but an error of Google's.
pawas
6:55 am on Mar 31, 2010 (gmt 0)
I thought nothing could be blocked on internet. Thousands of sites are blocked in my country as well, but I access them easily through proxy.
bill
7:11 am on Mar 31, 2010 (gmt 0)
China has a nation-wide firewall nicknamed the 'Great Firewall of China'. That firewall blocks many sites, and it was thought that this was also blocking access to Google. It turns out it wasn't, but that's the attention grabbing headline.
> proxy People in China can use proxies as well. There are many known ways to work around the Chinese firewall, but your average user won't know how to setup or use a proxy.
