Google Says Search Partially Blocked in China

Another escalation in tensions between Google and China: Beijing appears to have implemented a partial block of the company’s search service. According to Google’s Mainland China service availability page, Web search that was “fully or mostly accessible” Tuesday is now “partially blocked” (click image above to enlarge).

The company confirms this is indeed the case. “It appears that search queries produced by Google Suggest are being blocked for mainland users in China,” Google (GOOG) said in a statement. “Normal searches that do not use query suggestions are unaffected.”

Interestingly, the partial block comes as Google’s Internet Content Provider license for China is up for renewal and a day after the company, in an effort to placate the government, stopped automatically redirecting Google.cn visitors to its Hong Kong site. That doesn’t mean the blocking is necessarily related–the company has seen similar service fluctuations in China, some earlier this month–but a connection is certainly possible.