Edgecast Network Targeted By Chinese Government

Just a few days before China hosts a major Internet industry conference, the country has apparently decided to block access to multiple different websites.

Greatfire.org, a site that monitors Internet censorship in China, reported on Tuesday that “thousands of websites” have been blocked, all in relation to Edgecast, one of the largest Content Delivery Networks in the world.

Edgecast has, via their blog, confirmed that some of its services have been blocked: “We have been hearing from our CDN and Monitoring partners throughout the industry and our own customers that more sites, CDNs and networks are being filtered or blocked by the Great Firewall of China.

“This week we’ve seen the filtering escalate with an increasing number of popular web properties impacted and even one of our many domains being partially blocked… with no rhyme or reason as to why.”

Greatfire has used Edgecast in the past to bypass the censorhip of blocked sites like Youtube by hosting “mirror sites” that redirect users to the actual sites.

Edgecast has voiced its frustration over the blocks: “For those of our customers who are frustrated by this, we share your frustration, as does the whole content delivery and hosting industry.

Rest assured that we stay committed to work with our global ISP partners and do our best to mitigate the effects of these filtering policies to ensure a clear path to your users and customers in China”, says Edgecast.

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International also issued a statement saying that the upcoming internet conference, organised by China’s Cyberspace Administration, is “a further sign that internet freedom is under a sustained attack.”