China net users miffed at Google access issues

I am shocked! You mean that people actually find themselves getting ticked off when access to content is being filtered by a company who promises to “do no evil”? Why who’d thought? Right…

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Web surfers have complained of problems opening Google Inc.’s main search engine Web site in the latest bout of Internet access problems afflicting foreign Internet sites.

Internet search giant Google drew fire in January after it announced it would voluntarily block politically sensitive terms on its Chinese site, Google.com.cn — bowing to Beijing’s demands in exchange for access to the world’s number-two Internet market.

But Web site Google.com had until recently been freely available and uncensored to Web surfers in China.

Problems, however, have been reported across the country with complaints ranging from intermittent access failure to sustained blockage.

“I haven’t been able to access Google’s Web page for over a week,” said Ma Le, 23, a researcher for a Beijing-based media company. “It’s very inconvenient as I regularly use it for work.”

Students in Wuhan, the capital of the central Chinese province of Hubei, also reported trouble accessing Google…. Source: Reuters