Google.com Blocked in China for Two Hours
The Beijing News, 6/25/09
Web search, gmail and other services under the Google root domain name (www.google.com) were inaccessible from Mainland China for roughly two hours, starting around 9:00 PM local time June 25. Attempts to visit the affected sites were met with a "connection reset", which can indicate the site has been blocked. Google China did not explain the cause for the outage, but did not deny that some websites were inaccessible. Services began to gradually resume two hours later around 11:20 P.M., but were still reported inaccessible by users in some areas. Google's Chinese-language site (google.cn), which is hosted in China, was unaffected.
Editor's Note: At the time Google.com's site became inaccessible yesterday, Marbridge spoke with contacts in various locations outside of China, all of whom reported being able to access Google.com without any problem. Marbridge was also able to access other overseas websites, suggesting there was no problem with any of the international gateways connecting China to the rest of the global Internet.
The blockage of Google.com comes less than a week after three popular CCTV television programs criticized Google's Chinese site, saying it provided a large volume of links to pornographic or other "vulgar" content (for more background on this, please see "Chinese Government Condemns Google China for Pornography", MD 6/18/09 issue), and also amid escalating controversy about the Chinese government's recently announced requirement that all new personal computers sold in China be bundled with "Green Dam - Youth Escort", a software program that ostensibly serves to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content on the web, but which many critics have suggested could be used by authorities to filter other types of content or monitor individual Internet users' web surfing activities. For more background on Green Dam - Youth Escort, please see "MIIT Requires 'Green Dam' Filtering Software on All PCs", MD 6/10/09 and "MIIT: Installation of Green Dam Filtering Software 'Optional'", MD 6/16/09 issue.
Keywords: online search Gmail Google Internet regulation Green Dam
Sending
