Google Blocked?

This is interesting:

Google's English News channel inaccessible in China for more than a week

Shanghai. (Interfax-China) - The English version of Google's news service has been inaccessible in China for more than a week. Zhang Junwei, a Google Media official stationed in Beijing, acknowledged that the company's English News channel was inaccessible when contacted by Interfax, but could not provide further comment.

The Google English News channel, which monitors more than 4,500 online news outlets, has become a popular resource for Chinese netizens searching for information from around the world. As Interfax previously reported, the Chinese government blocked Google's News channel in September of 2002.

Although Google's English News channel is presently inaccessible in China, the search engine's Chinese language News channel was up and running as normal. Google's Chinese Language News channel does not display results from websites banned by the Chinese government.

As of November 29, Interfax was still unable to access the home page of Google's English News through normal IP services, but was able to visit the site through proxy servers, suggesting that it may have been blocked by the authorities.

This sort of blocking will become more common, as will the ability of individuals to route around it.