Google says Web search in China is fully blocked

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Google says Web search in China is fully blocked

By Scott Morrison

(Updates with background on Google's operations in China beginning in fourth paragraph)

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Google Inc. /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 480.12, -4.87, -1.00%) said Thursday its Internet search engine and advertising platform had been fully blocked in China, while several other services were partially inaccessible.

Google said its images and news services were partially blocked, but noted that Gmail was still fully or mostly accessible within the country. The information was provided by the company on a website page that summarizes the accessibility to Google services from within mainland China.

The blockages appear to be the first significant disruption of Google services since the company was granted a key license renewal earlier this month that enabled it to continue operating its website in China.

The renewal was granted after the company reached a compromise with Chinese regulators that diffused a standoff over censorship requirements. As part of that compromise, the company's mainland Chinese Web page offers only a limited selection of services to Internet users, such as music search, product search and its translation tool, all of which Google is not required to censor.

Chinese users wishing to access Google's most popular services, such as its search engine, as well as its images, finance, videos and maps pages must click on a link that takes them to the company's Hong Kong site.

But many observers noted that so-called "two-click" solution would make it easy for Chinese authorities to block Google traffic from Hong Kong, creating service disruptions for consumers and potentially hampering the company's ability to sell ads on those pages.

Google officials weren't immediately available for comment and it was not clear what caused the service disruptions.

Shares in Google were off 1.5% at $477.88 in after-hours trading. The stock is off 22% so far this year but has gained 6.8% in the last month.