Microsoft’s Bing search engine down in China, sparking speculation it has been blocked by ‘Great Firewall’
- As of December, Bing held a 2 per cent share of China’s search market compared with 70 per cent for Baidu
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been unavailable to some mainland Chinese users since late Wednesday, triggering fears that it has become the latest American tech company to be “walled off” from the world’s largest internet population.
Attempts to open cn.bing.com, the company’s mainland-China hosted site, return error messages, though Chinese users can still access Bing’s global site using a virtual private network (VPN) which circumvents China’s “Great Firewall” of censorship.
It is unclear whether Bing has joined the Chinese government’s long list of blocked foreign websites or if its China service is experiencing technical difficulties.
“We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps,” Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday.
The Financial Times reported on Thursday that Bing has been blocked in China following a government order, citing two sources familiar with the matter.
Bing was blocked in China due to an accidental technical error rather than an attempt at censorship, Bloomberg News reported, citing people it did not identify. The government had no intention to block Bing but it’s unclear when the service will be restored, according to the report.