Acknowledging the fear of internet disruptions, Google has provided a page to monitor which services are still available in China.
We will be maintaining a live report (below) on Google Hong Kong global usage share. If Google Hong Kong’s share drop back to near zero, it is an indication that the Chinese government has blocked access from mainland China to the Google Hong Kong website.
After a struggle with the Chinese government over censorship and possible state-sponsored hacking of email accounts belonging to human rights activists, Google decided to stop censoring their services in China, including search and news. China has held firm that censorship is a “non-negotiable legal requirement”. Therefore, Google is now redirecting their Chinese website (www.google.cn) to Hong Kong (www.google.com.hk).
“Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong,” officials have just posted on Google’s blog.
This has dropped Google China’s usage share to zero and increased Google Hong Kong’s usage from close to zero to 3% of global usage share.