Chinese authorities briefly blocked Google yesterday, the latest in a series of moves apparently aimed at pressuring the US web firm.
Google\'s English language website and its gmail platform were completely blocked for two hours, according to state-owned China Dailyand FT.com.The Chinese-language google.cn site was unaffected.
The blocking comes after a week of public scolding of Google by the MIIT and the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center (CIIRC), who have accused it of providing links to pornographic content.
Following a meeting with government officials, Google said last Friday it would take "all necessary steps to fix any problems with our results."
The government disabled some search functions on Google\'s Chinese-language web after a CCTV TV program had showed how the associative word function could be used to generate sexually suggestive material.
Meanwhile, China\'s Ministry of Health has launched a campaign to stop health websites publishing sexually explicit material.
The ministry would "strengthen its management and supervision of sex health websites" in order to "prevent lewd content in disguise," a senior official told Xinhua.