On Monday, Google announced plans to change how Web users in China access its search engine in light of objections from the Chinese government over its recent strategy of redirecting users to an
uncensored site in Hong Kong. Now, the search giant says some Web search features have been partially blocked in China,
Bloomberg reports. The blockage affects the "suggest" tool, which helps users refine
queries as they're typed, Google said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg. At least for now, traditional searches are not being affected. "Partially blocked" means accessibility has dropped "to 10%
to 66%," writes Bloomberg, by which we're guessing it means 'from 66% to 10%.'
In a blog post late Monday, Google said it had resubmitted its application to renew the license, which comes up
for renewal on Wednesday. Rather than provide users with censored search results, Google has spent the past three months automatically redirecting users of google.cn -- its mainland Chinese address --
to an uncensored Hong Kong-based site, google.com.hk.
Read the whole story at Bloomberg »
