The Real Blogger Status

Blogger recently expanded a key feature in their infrastructure - country local domain redirection . Like all Blogger features, every time they expand the scope of aliasing, they cause problems. Some of the problems that were caused by the recent expansion of country local domain redirection - where they added over 2 dozen countries , in one project - are damaging vulnerable Blogger blogs. Incidental damage to any blogs, however, should not justify stopping - or impeding - the implementation of redirections, on a worldwide basis.

China has always been a subject of legend and mystery, in "Western" (non Asian) culture. Recently, one unique Chinese artifact - the Great Firewall Of China - has become a subject of legend and mystery too. For both bloggers (publishers of both Blogger and other blogs - and of various web sites) and bloggees (readers of both Blogger and other blogs - and of various web sites), and for people inside China and outside, the GFWC is the subject of discussion in both techie and non techie blogs, forums, and web sites. People inside China wonder Why can't I see my Blogger blog? and people outside China wonder Why can't my readers, inside China, see my blog? And those are the simple questions. People inside China, more realistically (and echoing some of the questions seen occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken ) ask Why can't I see all of my Blogger blogs? or Why can I see my Blogger blogs, but not my neighbours Blogger blogs (my FaceBook page, my Twe...

During the course of the 17th Communist Party Congress, look for censorship of Chinese access to BlogSpot.Com, and similar web sites, to continue. In Why China shut down 18,401 websites , The Christian Science Monitor, September 2007, reported The Chinese authorities are in the midst of an unusually harsh crackdown on the Internet, closing tens of thousands of websites that had allowed visitors to post their opinions, according to bloggers and Internet monitors in China. To remind the citizens that they are being watched, the government has animated characters Jingjing and Chacha performing. We don't want to get shut down so we shut down anything that could be offensive. says one Chinese ISP employee. Our upstream provider [the company that owns the servers] told us verbally there should be no commentary, no blogs , no bulletin board services, because the government is going bananas. If Chinese bloggers continue to complain of lack of access to their BlogSpot blogs, expect for thi...