Bing, the last mainstream overseas search engine left in China, has been blocked on a government order, according to industry sources talking to the Financial Times.
The government decision has been confirmed by China Unicom, one of China’s state-owned telecom giants, though details on what prompted the ban have not emerged.
Bing was not widely used in China, accounting for only 2% of searches compared with 70% by local search engine Baidu, according to web info site StatCounter.
Domestic tech companies are now almost entirely unrivalled on the mainland. Global leader Google retreated from China in 2010 after ethical disputes over censorship laws. Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter have also all been blocked.
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