Hong Kong: Internet analysis firm Dyn Research had claimed that China is blocking all access to Google’s email service Gmail.
After months of disruptions to the Gmail, China had blocked it with anti-censorship which advocate suggesting the Great Firewall was to blame.
A China-based freedom of speech advocacy group GreatFire.org said that large numbers of Gmail web addresses were cut off in China on Friday.
Users said the service was still down on Monday.
A member of Greatfire.org, who uses pseudonym, said, “I think the government is just trying to further eliminate Google’s presence in China and even weaken its market overseas.”
“Imagine if Gmail users might not get through to Chinese clients. Many people outside China might be forced to switch away from Gmail.”
Reports surfaced on social media that Gmail was blocked in China the day after Christmas. Now, an internet analysis firm called Dyn Research has confirmed the outage.
Earl Zmijewski, Dyn’s vice-president of data analytics said, “China has a number of ways they can block content. One of the crudest ways is to just block an IP address, and when you do that, you block all the content available at the IP.”
Google’s own Transparency Report, which shows real-time traffic to Google services, displayed a sharp drop-off in traffic to Gmail from China on Friday.
A Singapore based spokesperson of Google in an email said, “We’ve checked and there’s nothing wrong on our end.”
Bureau Report
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