Google hopes the service will be fully restored “soon,” Marsha Wang, a Beijing-based spokeswoman at the Mountain View, California-based company, said in an e-mailed statement. The operator of the worlds most popular Internet search engine also received reports of interruptions to its Gmail and Docs services, she said.
The U.S. company has spread “pornographic, lewd and vulgar” content, violating Chinas laws, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said today. The criticism follows Chinas decision last month to require computers sold in the country to include a state-backed anti-porn software, a move the U.S government said was a “serious barrier to trade.”
The interruptions may mark “a major escalation” in Chinese government efforts to censor the Internet, said Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA China, a Beijing-based technology consultancy. “Google.com is very popular for Chinese users, especially for accessing international sites, so it would be a very significant move,” he said.
Google said this week it suspended its “Suggest” search- prompt feature at its Chinese site after the local-language service was criticized by the government for providing links to pornography.
Punitive Measures
“Id like to stress that google.com, as an Internet enterprise providing services in China, should earnestly abide by Chinese laws and regulations,” Qin told a regular news briefing in response to questions about the inaccessibility of the companys Web site in China. “All the punitive measures adopted by relevant authorities are conducted strictly according to law,”
Googles search engine, Gmail and YouTube services are among 26 international Web sites that were inaccessible in China in the past 24 hours, according to Herdict.org, which compiles reports of Web outages. Herdict, a project of Harvard Universitys Berkman Center for Internet & Society, ranks the Asian country No. 1 for online censorship.
Google.cn, the U.S. companys Chinese service, featured links to vulgar and pornographic content, violating the countrys laws, state broadcaster China Central Television reported June 18.
Engineers worked throughout the weekend to address the concerns, Marissa Mayer, vice president for Googles search unit, said on June 23. The company disabled the “Suggest” function in its Chinese service last week, she said. Google.cn was operating in China as of today.
Revoke Directive
Google, with 27.8 percent of Chinas paid-search market last year, trails Beijing-based Baidu Inc., which has 62.2 percent, according to research firm Analysys International.
The program blocks anti-government Web sites, in addition to pornographic material, and will impair computer performance by making machines more prone to security breaches, according to researchers at schools including Harvard University and the University of Michigan.