This seems to be the end of the Cat and the mouse chase. Google had their best interests in continuing services in China but mainland China won’t let them.
China has cut off mainland access to the Hong Kong-based servers where Google was offering uncensored Chinese search results.
As Forbes reports:
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.
Searches of terms like “Beijing Olympics” returned error messages on Google.com.hk, Google.com in the U.S. and other international Google sites. Apparently, this widespread blockage was put in place at 5pm local time on Tuesday.
Users are still able to visit various Google websites, but error pages are returned on every attempted search. Further confirmations on this behaviour has been reported by various Chinese bloggers.
On Sunday, Google said that China seemed to be partially blocking access to some of its mobile services in the country. This could be an indication for the testing they might be undergoing while preparing for the big kick. Google dashboard shows that this partial mobile blockage is still in place, but the company has yet to confirm that censors are now blocking access to web search as well.
Internet would never be the same for China. A high profile hacking attempt in January could change face of the internet forever in China. After that, Google decied on, not filtering the chinese search results.
Chinese government officials feel that “Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks. This is totally wrong. We’re uncompromisingly opposed to the politicization of commercial issues, and express our discontent and indignation to Google for its unreasonable accusations and conducts.”
This is usual for Chinese web users. The government routinely blocks Web sites that they feel are sensitive including some sites related to Tibet, some spiritual movements and pornography, piracy. A number of American news sites have been blocked as well. And not to forget, there’s no Facebook and Twitter in china.
At this point of time, there are significant number of request filtering for Google search, the Official word is still not out from either China or Google, but its evident that it’s over. Great Firewall of China hates openness.
Related: The Great FireWall of China – Chinese Internet Censorship Insights
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