Receiving word from multiple sources, including some of our friends in China, that a number of websites in China are blocked, including Bing.com, Microsoft’s newly rebranded “decision engine”.
Danwei.org, P2P.net, and our friends at LiveSino.net have reports on the blockage:
China employs what is known as the Great Firewall of China, or the Golden Shield Project, to monitor and sometimes block internet access to sites within and from beyond China’s borders. Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, when Chinese tanks cleared the vast central square in Beijing of some 100,000 protesters. There is some speculation that the website blocking may be an attempt by the Chinese government to control access to information about what is known as the June 4th Incident inside China. In addition to Bing.com, Live.com, Hotmail.com, Twitter, and Flickr, YouTube and Blogspot have been blocked in China since March.
Apparently Windows Live Messenger is working fine still, and these blockades come and go, but for now, unless a proxy server is used, the rollout of Bing.cn will have to wait.