New York:
Google said on Thursday that its search engine was "fully blocked" in China, along with Google ads and mobile search.
This is the first time that Google has been blocked since March, when it closed its search service in China and began automatically redirecting users to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong after a standoff over censorship. Although it has been fairly common since then for the search engine to be partially blocked, which Google describes as between 10 percent and 66 percent blocked, it has not been fully blocked, or 67 percent to 100 percent blocked.
The announcement came on a Web page where Google monitors the availability of Google services in China. The Web site notes that "service status in China has a fluctuating nature." Hazelbaker said that it does not provide updates in real-time, which is why the outage last night showed up late on Thursday.
Since July, when China renewed Google's license to operate there, it has operated its Chinese Web site, Google.cn, and some Web services, and enabled users to click to search the uncensored search engine in Hong Kong, Google.com.hk.
On Google's earnings call with analysts earlier this month, Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president of product management, called it "good news" that China renewed the license. He said that revenue from China, where Google faces competition from its more popular competitor, Baidu, is relatively inconsequential to the company's financial performance.
"Certainly from a financial perspective, I want to reiterate, revenue from China is not material," Rosenberg said.
This is the first time that Google has been blocked since March, when it closed its search service in China and began automatically redirecting users to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong after a standoff over censorship. Although it has been fairly common since then for the search engine to be partially blocked, which Google describes as between 10 percent and 66 percent blocked, it has not been fully blocked, or 67 percent to 100 percent blocked.
The announcement came on a Web page where Google monitors the availability of Google services in China. The Web site notes that "service status in China has a fluctuating nature." Hazelbaker said that it does not provide updates in real-time, which is why the outage last night showed up late on Thursday.
Since July, when China renewed Google's license to operate there, it has operated its Chinese Web site, Google.cn, and some Web services, and enabled users to click to search the uncensored search engine in Hong Kong, Google.com.hk.
On Google's earnings call with analysts earlier this month, Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president of product management, called it "good news" that China renewed the license. He said that revenue from China, where Google faces competition from its more popular competitor, Baidu, is relatively inconsequential to the company's financial performance.
"Certainly from a financial perspective, I want to reiterate, revenue from China is not material," Rosenberg said.
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