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”