By 
We all know the story. China and Google don’t get along. The world’s most populous nation and the internet’s largest entity don’t see eye to eye on fundamental issues such as access to information and freedom of expression. The tenuous relationship has led to the ban of a number of Google products in China over the years, and the Android Market is only the latest to see a country-wide ban. Access to market.android.com from within China is denied across five major provinces, blocking smartphone users from accessing and downloading applications from the portal.
There may not be much of a loss, as many smartphones throughout China never had access to the Android Market to begin with (manufacturers did not seek out official Google support for their devices), particularly phones priced at a level more accessible to the general population. Instead, users rely on local app stores established by service providers and manufacturers.
This is not the first report of China blocking Android Market access, and it likely won’t be the last. The service can be added to a list that includes Gmail, Google Talk, and Google+.
[via TheNextWeb]
Send Jack Bauer in to fix this.
Jack Bauer is the new Chuck Norris
Honey Badger owns them both and doesn’t give a S#!+.
Google should stay out of politics and just worry about doing business. there are 1.2 billion people living in China, while most of them are less wealthy than Western Europe and North America, its still a massive market, the largest in the world.
Really? Stay out of politics huh? By that you mean give the Chinese government open access to every Google account in every country (yes even US residents) in exchange for being able to provide Google services to their residents?
You could use a history lesson.
yes, stay the FK outta politics. and instead of you worrying about what the Chinese are doing to its citizens you should be worried about what your own government is doing to its people….especially if you’re an American.
Gmail is not blocked all the time, but whenever it is not blocked, it will load extremely slowly. On connections of similar speed, the Chinese one will take 10X as long to load. This is probably due to government caps on Gmail or extensive filtering and moderating on Gmail.
Big deal, it’s the chinese consumers who end up losing. Plus I doubt the backward communist nation has any e-wallet, mobile banking and amazon like offerings anyway to take true advantage of the innovation.
I sound like a red-neck but I just hate the Chinese attitude towards Google. Maybe if Google stopped sharing data with the NSA, things would get better?
In fact, yes, they have all of those ;)
Must be that darned Great FireWall of China again
Just shows how fucked up the chinese government is.
No big surprise there.
Google needs to leave china.
The Chinese gov’t doesn’t want their people to download malware apps… just to produce them. :P
I am amazed Chinese people still put up with this baby sitting from their government. Grow up Chinese people, grow some balls, and stop putting up with this shit.
Have you ever heard of Tiananmen Square? Oh you haven’t…
to itchy_robot: this is a very naive way to think about chinese people.
Said like a true Westerner. I bet you’re American.
It’s true. The Chinese people are letting their government walk all over them. They scare them into not talking out, they imprison their people without sentencing, they filter their information, they allow corporations to enslave them, and they rape their environment. Eventually they will have to stand up for themselves. Sorry I didn’t word it politically correct enough to meet your liking.
You can test if any website is Blocked in China in real-time at http://www.blockedinchina.net/. That’s where the screenshot above is from.
I’m in China now, I can access market.android.com from my desktop computer.
GMail, and GTalk? Really? I used both on my Android handset when I was in Shanghai earlier this year. One of my Chinese friends had a locally procured HTC Desire S and didn’t seem to have any difficulties accessing these services either. Facebook was completely out of the picture without a VPN solution though.
It’s very short-sighted reporting…
GMail and Market are currently blocked *from Android phones*. GTalk isn’t blocked at all. Google+ is still accessible from Android phones, but not from Desktop computers. GMail and Market are both accessible from Desktop computers, though GMail *is* slowed down.