02 September 2002 | Author: John Hughes

China Gags Google

Researchers at Harvard University, along with many commentators in China are reporting that the Chinese authorities are blocking the use of major search engine Google throughout the country.

Chinese web users have come to rely on various "western" sites such as Google for information not otherwise freely available throughout the nation. Google has been especially popular due to the ease with which people can search in Chinese.

Interestingly, bigmouthmedia have tested http://cn.google.yahoo.com through the test facility at Harvard, and this site is still available, so Chinese users do still have access to Google. Quite whether anyone in China (including the authorities) realises this remains to be seen.

Earlier this year, Yahoo signed an agreement with the Chinese authorities that requires Yahoo to restrict certain sites from its database within China. This obviously applies primarily to Yahoo China (http://cn.yahoo.com). Whether this by extension also applies to Yahoo.com is unclear. Even so, Yahoo's web page results (which are essentially Google results) are reported as being accessible.

Harvard Website Tester

BBC News Story

Home | Careers | RSS | Contact Us | Newsletter

International sites: