![714117794 325e20fbdf Some Google services being blocked in Turkey? [Updated from Google]](http://cdn.thenextweb.com/files/2010/06/714117794_325e20fbdf.jpg "714117794 325e20fbdf photo")
According to sources around Twitter, that certainly seems to be the case.
While some Turkish journalists have been protesting against the blocking of YouTube and other sites, it appears the some Google services have come under fire as well. Presently, we have confirmation of Google Weblogs being blocked, but we have not yet been able to confirm any other services.
The blockages seem to stem from sites that criticize Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. Some Turkish citizens, however, have argued that they should be allowed to make their own decisions and not have a lack of information forced upon them.
According to the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, a Turkish court can ban a complete website merely because of a single piece of content while other sites like YouTube are banned by several court decisions, instead of just one.
We’re still digging around to find some solid information on this, and would appreciate any reports that we could get from inside the borders of Turkey.
Update:
We’re hearing unconfirmed reports that this in a failed attempt to block YouTube, the Turkish government have blocked every Google Service out there.
A Google spokesperson confirms this report, stating:
“We have received reports that some Google applications are unable to be accessed in Turkey. The difficulties in accessing some Google services in Turkey appears to be linked to the ongoing ban on YouTube. We are working to get our services back up as soon as possible.”
Thank you to Oğuz Serdar for the tip.
i think this is just another rumour originating from twitter.
take a look at this: http://gizmodo.com/5535536/the-real-story-behind-twitters-ridiculous-follow-bug
I wouldn’t bet on the two being related. There are confirmed stories of the Turkish gov and ISP’s blocking sites.
I am in Turkey and I can confirm that IP addresses for Google Docs, Google Translate and about 26 other Google services have been blocked by some Turkish ISPs since Wednesday.
YouTube has been blocked at the DNS level since 2008 and usually Turks have been able to get around this by using alternative DNS providers. However, this latest action requires a proxy/tunnel to avoid this annoying disruption.
Sadly it’s true. I am in Turkey now and I can access neither Youtube or Google Phone, which I was using daily when I was in Romania. No calls thru Google Phone. Despite my best attempts, I have not been able to find a work around, so I cannot easily reach my family in America. Sad.
It’s actually not the Google services but some Google IP ranges are recently blocked by Turkish gov. The main idea seems to be able to block Youtube’s new IPs. But since Youtube uses different range of IPs, and some other Google services’ share the same IP ranges, problems are occuring. But the main problem is for the web sites or corporations who uses Google services; like Google Analytics, Mail or Docs…
Ümit – Awesome! Thanks for the clarification! I’m still waiting to hear back from Google, to see if there’s anything to be done about it. In the mean time, that’s a great bit of information.
you can see other websites that were banned by Turkish government at http://engelliweb.com/
minimum 6400 websites are banned in Turkey.
engelliweb, I tried to check this link you shared, about the websites banned by the Turkish government, and I am still in shock to see that it is also banned! Any suggestion on how can I learn about that from another source?
engelliweb.com is the only source that lists *some* blocked websites in Turkey. (there were some others but they are not update or closed.)
goverment just gives some percentage statistics about the blocked websites, but they do not provide their links or total number.
(it is trusty site that was published at lots of online sources like; http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25003630/)
Sorry, for some reason the page was not appearing, but it worked now!
As someone who lives and works in Turkey and who’s work (until this week) is based on access to various Google apps I can confirm that apart from Gmail pretty much every other Google service (eg apps, docs, translate, sites etc) is unreachable from Turkey.
Until very recently it was possible to circumvent this by changing DNS on the local machine or router (eg to OpenDNS), unfortunately this no longer works and the block is spreading to other external DNS providers.
I wish I could say my business was worth enough to have some clout in changing these absurd and utterly misguided moves at censorship but unfortunately that is not the case so I may as well return to using a fax machine and a paper dictionary.
Come on Google, this isn’t China, this should be child’s play. Your presence here is already established, you have the public support, everyone hates this policy, get behind us and help us out!
Saturday, June 5th, and many Google Services are still blocked. For now, my Gmail works, but docs and translate are inaccessible for a few days now.
In Ankara.
i cannot even access google services on my mobile, i have an android phone and i cannot even set it up because it (as i understand now) cannot access googles servers. i use avea as my telephone provider.
2:10pm, turkey, izmit.
i just got onto gtalk on my android.
it seems to working as of this moment?
I live and work in Turkey and I need the translation services for my business. ıs there any way around this problem. I am desperate.
I’m in Turkey and can’t access market and any other service like gmail, talk from my Android phone. This sucks.
in turkey. google translate and chat not working since last week. :(
google blocked in turkey !! real or joke ? ouchh , so bad…
Lawmakers are very silly persons.They supposed to block some web sites.But everybody can enter google,youtube etc.Praticaly, nothing banned in Turkiye.Because there’re tons of way to entering blocking sites and whole country know how to use it. e.g. just only change pc dns server ip to opendns ip numbers and everything is allright or you can use proxy programs like netshade or others, and some proxy sites, several dns ip numbers, ghost ways… But if you’re a newbie to pc and you do not know to use any of these ways, your pc will take automatic assigned dns ip, and you’ll be effected ban. However Prime Minister Erdogan watches blocked youtube and suggest peoples to use it and added that people also know how to open blocked sites. Still Turkish users have got high user ratings in these sites.This events occurs because of youtube ip pool complexity with google. And google still do not answer to Turkish government for their tax payments for a long time. Google have got office in Turkey, and they’re not registered as tax subject. Google pay taxes to every country except Turkiye. So, TAX is the center of it. Right now, I enjoy using all google services with high speed, watching youtube, etc in Turkiye.
Anyone in Turkey who cant access Google services can change DNS to be able to reach the services. If you are behind a wireless networks you can add these DNS’s to your router (must be under applications tab) ;
156.154.70.22
156.154.71.22
Those are called Comodo Secure DNS (Google it you can find out more). I can reach most of the services with these except youtube.
As of Sunday, June 20, most of the Google Services are back up but I am not sure about Picasa Web Albums. This appears to be blocked in Turkey. Fine, except that all blog photos using Blogger are uploaded and stored into Picasa. Thus, some 1500 photos are absent when viewing my blog. This is only true in Turkey- outside of Turkey, the photos appear as normal. For Turks, try to acesss the Picasa site and check if it isnt’ blocked. It is for me.
I have spent a week searching through help forums from Google, to Picasa, Blogger, Windows Live Writer, and I have found that help forums are totally useless unless you have staff that are properly trained and willing to check into problem. Otherwise it is a forum full of angry people.I suppose this is the way it will remain until some kind of agreement is reached between Google and the Turkish government.
Google executives were supposed to be traveling to Turkey last week to try to negotiate but officials with the government stated flatly there would be no negotiations- the only answer is for Google to pay the taxes the government says it owes. Turkey is not the only country to object to Google’s tax avoidance tactics- it is however one of the few countries willing to deny its citizens the access to Youtube to prove its point.
I can surf without any restrictions in my macintosh with NetShade in Turkiye. There’re tons of proxy applications. Just choose one app for you. It’s the easy way.
http://i45.tinypic.com/den14p.jpg
Powerscape, are you speaking of proxy DNS servers or tunneling proxy?Tunneling seems to work but most of the proxy DNS like OpenDNS and GoogleDNS are also unable to get around this particular ban. I am using one at the moment which is rather slow but allows fairly good access.
In fact, I can live without YouTube but having my photos in my blog invisible is a major pain in the butt. :)
@Nomad, you should use only a proxy application for your comfort. Proxy programs makes your presence on the web anonymous by routing your connection through a proxy server. Instead of your computer connecting directly to the site in question, you connect to a proxy server which in turn fetches the web page from the destination server and passes it back to you. The proxy server is the only one making connections to the sites you visit, and only the proxy’s IP address is seen by those sites. Proxy applications provides access to a long list of public proxy servers, as well as its own private server which is available to registered users of the software. As a macintosh user, I use NetShade in Turkiye.
GoogleEarth has been blocked for over a week in Turkey. I hope this isn’t something Google got into a powerplay with the Turkish authorities over tax issues for their business in the country.
Goverment associations says that “we aren’t blocked to reach google” but in fact, almost all google applications has been stopped. Goverment insistly claim about “all precaution for stopping IPs of youtube connection” but in fact minister says “google must be obey Turkish laws of taxes that they pusblishes advertisments”.
Nowadays, Turkish internet users who supports local ISP DNS servers, can not reach Google Earth and Picasaweb. All pictures has gone where the located picasaweb, they are not seen on webpages.The most of bloggers,researcher’s, personal users pages seems like “empty” without pictures which have been keeping in picasaweb.
Goverment insistly make pressbulletin “we are not blocked” but, in fact all google application have gone in Turkey!
Journalist or any other internet users communities are not interested of this issue as needed as to be!!! there is no any forces or pushes to goverment for stopping blockage IPs. I think main problem is Turkish internet users are not enough “willing”
Some Up to date information can be found here: http://internationmusing.blogspot.com/2010/07/turkish-court-upholds-ban-on-youtube.html
For all bloggers in Turkey, be sure to use a tunneling proxy to determine whether your photos are showing up OUTSIDE of Turkey. It would tell you whether your Picasa photos are erased, or just unavailable for viewing inside Turkey.
Yes, just arrived.
Google phone has been blocked in Istanbul. Worked fine yesterday in Japan.
I think it is really sad, Turkey being a secular society and looking more and more likely to be a superpower in EU, are heading back to the dark ole days with these people control censorship moves.. Lets get real this is all about people control, not the rubbish that is being spun out by this new Goverment..