Google Says Mobile Service in China Partially Blocked
Bloomberg
Bloomberg
Google Inc., after shutting its Internet search engine in China last week, said its mobile services in the country are being partially blocked.
The services delivered to wireless phones were operating normally until becoming partly shut down yesterday, Google said on its Web site that tracks service availability in mainland China.
“Service availability fluctuates regularly, and it is too early to tell if this blockage will be persistent,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “There is no specific indication that the change is related to our recent announcement.”
Google is keeping close tabs on its various Web-delivered services in China after a standoff with authorities led the company to start redirecting users of its Chinese search engine to its Hong Kong site. Google pledged in January to stop censoring results in mainland China after hackers stole data and targeted e-mail accounts of human-rights activists.
Mobile is the first service in China to have a change in status since Google unveiled the feature-tracking site on March 22.
Google’s Web, images and news-search services continue to have “no issues” while video-sharing site YouTube and Blogger remain blocked, according to the feature tracker.
The Mountain View, California-based company said last week it would no longer offer its mobile SEO applications on Android phones in China “until further notice.” Chinese companies can still sell phones that use Android, an operating system backed by Google.
Google fell 80 cents to $561.89 at 2:50 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares had dropped 9.2 percent this year before today.
The services delivered to wireless phones were operating normally until becoming partly shut down yesterday, Google said on its Web site that tracks service availability in mainland China.
“Service availability fluctuates regularly, and it is too early to tell if this blockage will be persistent,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “There is no specific indication that the change is related to our recent announcement.”
Google is keeping close tabs on its various Web-delivered services in China after a standoff with authorities led the company to start redirecting users of its Chinese search engine to its Hong Kong site. Google pledged in January to stop censoring results in mainland China after hackers stole data and targeted e-mail accounts of human-rights activists.
Mobile is the first service in China to have a change in status since Google unveiled the feature-tracking site on March 22.
Google’s Web, images and news-search services continue to have “no issues” while video-sharing site YouTube and Blogger remain blocked, according to the feature tracker.
The Mountain View, California-based company said last week it would no longer offer its mobile SEO applications on Android phones in China “until further notice.” Chinese companies can still sell phones that use Android, an operating system backed by Google.
Google fell 80 cents to $561.89 at 2:50 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares had dropped 9.2 percent this year before today.
