China ‘deletes’ Gmail, shuts Google out of mainland

Gmail is currently unavailable in China. The outage is widely believed to be a result of the Chinese government attempting to curb the company’s growing presence. Reports of Gmail not working in China began on Friday and data from Google’s real-time traffic report shows a steep drop that coincides. Users were trying to access the site through protocols like IMAP and SMTP but found that they no longer worked. Google has had a particularly rough go in the Chinese market - since June nearly all of its services have been upset by Beijing after the company refused to comply with censorship requests.

Gmail has never been openly permitted in China but there’s been this workaround. People in China have been able to use these third-party providers to access Gmail while in the country.

Yahoo Finance senior columnist Michael Santoli

China has been accused of creating an unwelcome climate for U.S. business in general. Antitrust investigations by the Chinese government this year have levied fines against both Microsoft and Qualcomm. The Chinese government has also previously blocked access to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and The New York Times are just some of the websites that have experienced bans of their own.

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