Reporters Without Borders says the Google.com search engine has been blocked in most parts of China. The media watchdog group said Wednesday that Internet users in many major Chinese cities have had difficulty connecting to the uncensored international version of Google for the past week. It said the blocking has been gradually extended to Google's news and e-mail services, leaving the public only with the censored Chinese versions of these programs.
The group also said Chinese authorities have largely managed to neutralize software designed to circumvent censorship since late May. The software is used to gain access to news and information that is blocked by the firewall isolating China from the rest of the worldwide web.
A Google spokeswoman told the French news agency (Agence France-Presse) the company is looking into the apparent effort to block its search engine.