On Tuesday, two days before the anniversary, Chinese netizens found Twitter, Flickr, Hotmail, MSN Live and Microsoft's new search engine Bing were blocked in the market. Within the next 24 hours, sites including Time Asia and the Financial Times’ Chinese domain were also targeted by Chinese censors as the news sites ran stories related to the Tiananmen Square deaths.
Offline, copies of The South China Morning Post and the International Herald Tribune were also destroyed to prevent further stories from circulating.
According to sources from the affected digital media companies, advertisers that ran campaigns at the time of the shutdown face decreased exposure to their target audiences, but that’s that extent of it.
Kenneth Andrew, marketing director of Microsoft Advertising Greater Asia-Pacific, said both search and display advertisers on Microsoft’s three affected entities pay on a clicks-per-impression basis, or CPM. These advertisers are not charged for time spent on Microsoft’s site unless their ads are clicked on.
“Hotmail and MSN’s issues had been resolved by early Wednesday, so the amount of time it was down was pretty minimal,” Andrew added. “This sort of thing happens - often it’s something that we work with the Government on. We’re still working on Bing with all the relevant parties and we should be coming up with a good resolution soon.”
He added that Microsoft was “working closely with [advertisers and marketers] to oversee the events.”
Meanwhile, a spokesman from Yahoo, which owns Flickr, said the site carries little advertising, yet the censorship process is irksome nonetheless.
"We understand the Chinese government is blocking access to Flickr and other international sites, though the government has not issued any explanation,” the spokesman said. “We believe a broad restriction without a legal basis is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression.”
Representatives from the print media titles affected by the clampdown declined to comment on the impact on advertisers.
