According to multiple reports today including the New York Times, the Government of China is blocking Gmail access to people located in China.
As most in the domain name space know, many domain buyers are located in China.
Therefore if you doing any outbound marketing of domain names to people in China or even trying to respond to offers you receive from buyers in China and if your using a Gmail account to do so they are most likely not receiving your emails.
Of course if the buyers in China are using Gmail for their outgoing emails, those emails are going out either.
As the biggest buyers of domain names outside the United States appears to be from China this Gmail blockage may huge implications for the domain industry for at least the short term
Here in part is what the New York Times had to say about the Chinese blockage of Gmail:
“”The Chinese government appears to have blocked the ability of people in China to gain access to Google’s email service through third-party email clients, which many Chinese and foreigners had been relying on to use their Gmail accounts after an earlier blocking effort by officials, according to Internet analysts and users in China.
The blocking began last Friday and has ignited anger and frustration among many Internet users in China. Data from Google shows traffic to Gmail dropping to zero from Chinese servers”
jose says
on the positive side, at least we will get less junk offers… this year it has been ludicrous.
johnuk says
Thanks for letting us know. Hmm, maybe why I havent had any replies, just many emails rom “*.163.com” which I am not sure whether it is spam or genuine many times. I always write back from a Gmail account that I can throw away when gets too bogged down with junk.
Winston Tsao says
I’ve always used a different account to reply to domain inquiries, just to weed out bots from humans.
Acro says
I’ve completed domain sales to Chinese buyers via DNS or forums, never using Gmail/hotmail etc. The bulk majority of direct email inquiries from China are attempts to buy for $10-$20, however.
BrianWick says
I no longer bother with emails coming from 163.com and qq.com.
100% waste of time – and if I am wrong – they will find a different email address or way to contact you
Martin says
I live in China. This article is Incorrect. You have misunderstood what has happened.
Access to gmail has been blocked in China, as it has been intermittently before. This means that any Chinese with a gmail account will not be able to connect to gmail.com or use the gmail app on their smartphone. This can be circumvented by using a VPN.
It has NO effect on email sent FROM a gmail address to someone in China. So no action is required from people outside China. People in China can still receive email from gmail addresses. Having said that, it has been the case for some time that some spam filters in China have been tending to label mails from gmail addresses as spam.
Within China, few people use gmail. Most people use Chinese free email providers, so this hasn’t affected many people in China.
johnuk says
@Martin. What a shame that China does’nt label emails FROM *.163.com and *.qq.com as Spam ,because 99.99999% of time that is all it is !.
Martin says
It’s interesting you say that. 163.com and qq.com are major email providers in China and within China are by and marge not used for sending spam any more than other email addresses. I have a feeling a mirror image of this issue must exist for gmail addresses, which is why these tend to get caught up in spam filters in China.