Their stated reasoning was two fold: a) that the services and information that google provides access to, even with censorship, would be a great resource to the Chinese people and would improve lives through access to ideas and information and b) that after establishing a working relationship in China, censorship requirements could be eased and the government would begin to see the benefits of free information flow.

So part of the decision to stop censorship was that their initial hopes for their China search engine evolving into a more free version didn't seem achievable. The reason that censorship came to a head now seems to have been the Chinese government's invasion of privacy, using hacking through gmail and a number of other sites to spy on human rights activists, etc.

What I want to know is:

Will gmail be accessible???

Anybody else know for sure? I looked around and couldn't find a place to contact gmail directly...

gmail.com should not be effected, aslong as the chinese gvmt. does not block the access to this service. For now they shouldn't have a reason to do it.
This whole thing is about google.cn not google.com.
The chinese gvmt cant forbid websites outside of their country, they only can block access to them.
But no one can tell you what the chinese gvmt will do next. No one knew that Facebook, youtube etc. would be blocked in china for such a long period.
So get yourself different email addresses and hope that one will work. The other possibility would be to leave the country and enjoy the seemingly freedom in another country.

This case is black and white to me even though the CCP is trying their best to make it grey. They've managed to pursuade many of the Chinese (and a few foreigners as well) that Google is in the wrong so kudos to the effectiveness of their spin and propaganda. It was unfortunately never a realistic option that the government would back down or even negotiate on the issues so it's no real surprise that Google after having backed into a corner had to pull the plug.

It's a sad day for everyone.

I think the Chinese government is in a learning curve. At the moment they still think the world will chance to suit them, over time they will realise that being part of an international community means having to meet international norms. This is a bit of a shock to them after being able to dictate terms to the Chinese population for 60 years. In the meantime it will be two steps forward, one step back (or one step forward, two steps back!).

You're right, it is as black and white as it gets.......Google could never achieve a decent market share in China and Google HQ needed a way out of the market without admitting defeat and send stock prices plummeting. They have become heroes in the west for standing up to China but in actual fact they created the war (Wag the Dog comes to mind). Censorship is fine as long as there are profits - no profits move your soap box to the moral high ground!

recommendations for those who want to be Google free:

Search engine - Yahoo (connects to the US)
Web browser - Firefox (Google chrome will not let you change the default search engine)

free email - Hotmail (lack of a better choice)

Unfortunately maps and earth have yet to be outdone

Interesting to note that no one in this debate, here or elsewhere, has ever mentioned Baidu as a serious alternative to google for reasons obvious to any Chinese student doing research.

Secondly, I resent a mere utility company (China Unicom) making an arbitrary decision to ban their 'customers' from accessing google when this appears to go against the way central government wishes to approach this issue. It's a cheap move to ingratiate themselves with hotheads in order to temporarily boost sales, whilst denying Chinese students access to a useful study tool.

Saying goodbye to google.cn seems likely, but there will always be google.com, google.hk or whatever. The difference is it will be slower and you will be mysteriously blocked more often. In the end there is always VPN or similar proxy services. They can't effectively block all VPN without blocking banking and commercial access, unless they somehow convince banks and businesses to do away with encrypted connections... hah

Well itr seems no access to ANY Google now.

I for one cannot do without Google Scholar.

I will more than likely leave in the wake of this ridiculous censorship.

If they want to censor politically sensitive or subversive stuff thats fine (ish) by me. But blocking Google Scholar is serious dent in any kind of serious academic work.

Yep, seems like that's it for Google. Anyone know if gmail still working? I would check myself if i had an account but i don't - just curious.

What an absolute joke.