China Blocks Access to Gmail via Third-Party Email Clients

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

The Chinese government has blocked access to Gmail from third-party applications, completely blocking access to the email service in mainland China.

According to several reports on Monday, Gmail appeared to be fully blocked on Friday from third-party email clients like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail. Google said that there was zero traffic from China as of Friday, and that it wasn’t because of something gone awry on its end, according to a report by the New York Times.

Access to Gmail has been blocked in China for six months, but users were able to check their Gmail via third-party email clients.

Gmail and other Google services were blocked by Chinese authorities in June during the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. At the time a spokesperson from GreatFire.org said that it was the biggest attack on Google that had ever taken place in China. GreatFire provided a Google mirror website to allow access to Chinese users.

Gmail users in China will now have to rely on virtual private networks to access Gmail. Google’s email service joins Facebook and Twitter as popular US services blocked in China.

In November, China temporarily suspended its firewall in one city for three days while it hosted the World Internet Conference, but it didn’t stop the country from ramping up censorship in other cities.

This article originally appeared at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/china-blocks-access-gmail-via-third-party-email-clients