China firewalls iTunes

Apple said Friday they were investigating why access to iTunes appeared to be blocked for users in China after a pro-Tibet album became a hit on the online music store.

The iTunes download site has been unavailable for many users within China in the past week, but Apple's Beijing-based spokeswoman Huang Yuna said she did not know why music fans were unable to log on.

"We've noticed the problem. It's true that users may fail to log in to iTunes store right now," she told AFP.

"We are still investigating," she said, but would not confirm if the company was in contact with Chinese authorities.

Apple's online music store, iTunes, has been blocked in China after more than 40 Olympic athletes downloaded a pro-Tibet album from the site.

The disappearance of iTunes behind the Great Firewall of China comes at a time when the Chinese Government had promised free and unfettered internet access for foreign journalists covering the Beijing Olympics. Blocks have been lifted on some sites, but many more remain inaccessible.

Consumers in China began inundating Apple help forums on Monday with complaints that they could not access iTunes. Earlier on the same day, the US-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) announced that 46 athletes from North America, Europe and even Beijing had used the site to download Songs for Tibet, which had been offered to them free of charge.

On china.org.cn, an internet portal managed by the Chinese government's Information Office of the State Council, an article reported that "angry netizens" were "rallying together to denounce Apple in offering Songs for Tibet for purchase". Some of these "netizens", the article said, wished to ban any of the album's performers from entering China.

"The predictably hostile response to the album from Chinese internet users, as reported by an official Chinese media outlet, reflects continued attempts to suppress any support for Tibet at a time of crisis for the Tibetan people, as well as the level of entrenched misinformation about Tibet propagated by the Beijing government among the Chinese public," said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet, speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald.