The Australian: China censors bowl net users a Googly

CHINA'S netizens are in shock this week at the loss of highly prized search tool Google. As people logged into their workstations on Monday morning the news spread that Google.com, the US-based internet search engine, had been blocked.

In information-starved China, Google is gold, and its loss has been the focus of dismay around office water coolers all week.

Even the normally deadpan Foreign Ministry spokesman at a regular media briefing was put out. Asked why Google had been banned, Kong Quan urged the journalist to contact officials at the relevant government department and ask them.

"I always use Yahoo and Google and other search engines," he said.

Google.com confirmed the block in a statement, saying: "We are currently working with Chinese officials to get our full service restored to the millions of Chinese who depend on Google every day." While websites with content deemed offensive or subversive are routinely put out of service in China, this is the first time a search engine has been blocked. "They are basically saying there are too many sites for them to block, so blocking the search engine is more effective," said Duncan Clark, managing director of internet consultancy firm BDA China.

"But from a public relations point of view - not that they care - it is idiotic."

There was speculation the block was part of a campaign to "maintain a sound environment" during a sensitive political period, the run-up to the 16th Communist Party congress in November.

The fact that a Google search for "Jiang Zemin" turns up, on the first page, a Falun Gong site listing the Chinese President's [crimes] against the banned spiritual movement would no doubt have offended the authorities. The same search using competing search engine Yahoo delivers just one listing - an official biography of the Chinese President.

Unlike Google, Yahoo and several hundred internet service providers have agreed to the Chinese Government's industry code of conduct, pledging to keep its portal free of material that might "jeopardise state security and disrupt social stability".