Chinese Gmail users learned Friday that they can no longer access Google's email service.
Based on Google's transparency report, the online traffic from China dropped on Friday and dipped to zero on Saturday. However, it peaked on Monday. Google Asia Pacific's spokesperson Taj Meadows said they checked and there's nothing wrong on their end.
Chinese Foreign Ministry representative Hua Chunying said that she knows nothing about the government blocking the service.
"China has consistently had a welcoming and supportive attitude towards foreign investors doing legitimate business here," said Hua.
A U.S.-based internet analyst said that tests showed that the Google IP addresses blocked are the ones using IP addresses from Hong Kong.
Chinese users who use the email service to monitor news blocked by the mainland government aren't the only ones affected, as foreign companies who use Gmail as the platform for their company email were also affected.
Gmail services were blocked in June, but it was still accessible through e-mail protocols such as SMTP and POP3. But now, users need a virtual private network (VPN) software to access the email service.
A member of GreatFire.org, anti-censorship group, said, "I think the government is just trying to further eliminate Google's presence in China and even weaken its market overseas."
In 2009, Google Sites, Youtube and Picasa were discontinued in China because the company didn't want to abide by the country's censorship rules. Google Search was accessible until July.
Gmail seems to be the only target of the recent censorship as Yahoo! and Microsoft said their email services aren't affected.
However, Google isn't the only website blocked in the mainland as some of the biggest social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and news sites like The New York Times and Bloomberg News were also censored by the government. To enter the Chinese market, LinkedIn agreed to censor content to be shown to Chinese users.
