Google Inc.’s share price down, China blocks email service Gmail

The email service of Google Inc. – Gmail – was blocked in China through third-party applications. This step made Gmail part of the other services of the U.S.-based company, which have been banned in China, currently the largest Internet market worldwide.

The State Internet Information Office of China did not respond to the requests for comment on Monday. The spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hua Chunying, said yesterday that she did not know about the issue. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Chunying also explained that the government “always welcomes foreign businesses to carry out relevant work in China”.

Gmail traffic on the website of the search engine company in China sharply declined on Friday. According to data announced by Google on its Transparency Report page on December 26th, its traffic volume for the Gmail services went down by almost 85%. In addition, the Gmail email service of Google seemed to be blocked on some computer applications, which previously connected to it smoothly.

On Monday Google revealed that Gmail was still unavailable in the country. The owner of the largest search engine in the world said in an official statement, cited by the Financial Times: “We’ve checked and there’s nothing technically wrong on our end.”

Online content has always been strictly monitored by Chinese authorities. The latter sometimes ban or unban Internet websites and services without stating a specific reason. Foreign services owned by giants such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., as well as the YouTube video streaming service of Google are all currently banned in China.

On the other hand, local authorities are striving to make local Internet companies such as Tencent Holdings Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd more popular among customers.

Google Inc. was down 0.78% to close at $537.31 per share yesterday, marking a one-year drop of 4.01%. The company is valued at $364.81 billion. According to CNN Money, the 43 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Google Inc. have a median target of $640.00, with a high estimate of $750.00 and a low estimate of $530.00. The median estimate represents a +19.11% increase from the last price of $537.31.