- General
- January 24, 2019
- 4 minutes read
Bing Search Blocked In China
Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit via Sportsfile Microsoft’s Bing search engine has…
 |
| Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith
Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit via Sportsfile
|
Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been blocked in China, the company revealed on Wednesday, marking it as the latest foreign service to be blocked in the country. But according to Bloomberg, this is due to a technical error as opposed to an attempt at censorship. It says the government had no intention to block Bing although it’s unclear when the service would be re-activated citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
Other popular websites blocked in China include Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Slack, GitHub, Dropbox, Twitter, Blogspot, Vimeo, The New York Times, Scribd, Tumblr and Netflix. On Thursday, China’s cyber watchdog said it deleted nearly 8,000 mobile apps including a video game from China’s own Tecent which it dubbed as ‘malicious’.
 |
| Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
Image by Dan Taylor/Heisenberg Media
|
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) ordered telecom operators to shut down the services of 7,783 apps, stating they had overcharged and cheated users and also stolen information. The Tencent game involved was a Chinese version of the popular “Fruit Ninja” developed by iDreamSky and distributed by Tencent.
A Bing block is the second hitch for Microsoft in China since November 2017 when its Skype messaging service was pulled from app stores in the country. It also completed its $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub (blocked in China) in October. “We’ve confirmed that Bing is currently inaccessible in China and are engaged to determine next steps,” Microsoft said in a statement.
