Google Searches (for Tiananmen, Hu’s Son) Still Blocked in China

See also this story of Hong Kong blogger who removed a post from her site and a San Diego blogger who didn't.

Google Searches for Tiananmen, Hu’s Son Still Blocked in China
March 23, 2010
Businessweek (Bloomberg)

Google Inc.’s decision to redirect Chinese readers to its Hong Kong-based Internet site hasn’t given China’s nearly 390 million Web surfers more access. Instead, searches that were once censored are no longer available at all.

Queries on the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on the main Google.com and the Google.com.hk Web sites aren’t executable in China, where readers using Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer are told “cannot display the webpage” or “network error.” Searches for a son of President Hu Jintao in connection with a graft case in Namibia are blocked as well.

The company yesterday said it is redirecting users from Google.cn, set up in 2006 to offer a better experience for Chinese readers. The government will likely block access through its Internet censorship system dubbed “The Great Firewall,” said Rebecca MacKinnon, a visiting scholar at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University...