Google's Chinese exile ends

NEWS A block on people trying to access Google within China appears to have been lifted. For almost a fortnight the site was unavailable to surfers logging on inside China, with fellow search engine Altavista the victim of similar treatment during the past week. Political unrest in the run-up to November's Communist Party congress had been blamed as the likely reason for the ban, as the government, which is notoriously strict on censorship, was allegedly concerned about the information available via the search engines. Surfers trying to access Google or Altavista found they were being redirected to one of a number of government approved Chinese search engines. As of today however, the Chinese ban appears to have been lifted in the same unannounced fashion as it was imposed. Surfers have been able to once again search using the site, but the news isn't so good for AltaVista which is still reportedly unavailable.