Originally published by FT.com,03 Aug 2010

By Kathrin Hille

Google has suffered the first consistent blocking of one of its services in China since the Chinese government’s decision to renew its licence early last month.

Google Wenda, a platform opened just two weeks ago on the company’s Hong Kong website where users can ask questions to be answered by other users, has been unavailable from inside mainland China since last Friday, internet users in different cities in China reported on Tuesday.

It comes after Google late last week reported the first block to its core search and advertising services since the resolution of its dispute with China, though it later said it had misjudged the extent of the problem and it had suffered only a “relatively small blockage”.

The development indicates that the US company’s prospects in the world’s most populous internet market remain unclear even after the licence renewal seemingly put an end to its stand-off with Chinese authorities.

“This shows that Google is now, more than ever, at the mercy of the government for retaining its share of the Chinese market,” said Edward Yu, chief executive of Analysys, a Beijing-based internet research group. “Disruptions like this one discount Google’s value for users in China.”

Baidu, China’s leading online search engine, has a popular Q&A tool. According to Analysys, Google’s share of Chinese online search market revenues dropped to 24 per cent in the second quarter from 31 per cent in the first.

Some other Google services including the YouTube video-sharing website and Picasa photo-sharing site have long been blocked in China. In January, Google said it was reconsidering its China strategy following a hacking attack which it believed came out of China and increasing Chinese government demands for self-censorship. The company then said it would end self-censoring search results, putting it at odds with Beijing.

Two months later, Google started automatically redirecting users of its Chinese website to its uncensored Hong Kong site. Early last month, it said the Chinese government had objected to this attempt at compromise and threatened not to renew the company’s licence. Google then started requiring users to click to be redirected. Shortly after that, it announced it had been granted a new licence.

However, Chinese free speech advocates and internet analysts have said it is unlikely the licence renewal reflects an enduring compromise between Google and the Chinese authorities.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/67efef3c-9f1f-11df-8732-00144feabdc0.html