The world’s biggest email service was blocked in the country after months of disruptions to Gmail. Some believe that the country’s “great firewall” was the reason, with the Chinese government trying to further eliminate Google’s presence in the country and even weaken its market overseas.

According to Google’s chart real-time traffic to Google services, there was a sharp dropoff in traffic to Gmail from China. The company has confirmed that the problem was not on its end. Since last summer, almost all of Google’s services have been heavily disrupted in the country, but Gmail users could still access the email service via protocols like Imap, SMTP and Pop3, which let users communicate using Gmail on apps like the iPhone’s Mail and Microsoft Outlook.

It is perfectly known that China maintains tight control over the worldwide web and quickly acts against any signs of dissent or challenges to the ruling Communist party’s leadership. China has the most sophisticated Internet filtering mechanism ever, dubbed the “great firewall of China”. Some believe that the country has stepped up its disruption of foreign Internet services over the past few months in order to create its own local Internet cut off from the rest of the world.

Gmail’s blockage could make email communication difficult for the firms operating in the country, which use the service for their corporate email system. Chinese foreign ministry claimed they know nothing about Gmail being blocked, but pointed out that in fact the Chinese government was committed to providing a good business environment for foreign investors.

As always, people can get around any Internet censorship by using a VPN, which allows unhindered access to blocked websites and services.

Wow. Crazy how much effort China puts into trying to block the outside world, but yet are so industrial (which relies on outside communication). Hope they never block Skype...