Rebecca McKinnion has confirmed that the blackout on TypePad-hosted blogs is throughout China. As well, it has spread to the ‘blogs.com’ domain.

Rebecca’s site was accessible from Shanghai as late as yesterday afternoon, but it was only accessible via a proxy by Wednesday evening.

Thanks to the other bloggers who are drawing attention to this. I am pessimistic that any change can be imposed on the Communist Party through outside protest. It may also be too late for actions against companies that have helped build the Great Firewall. But I think it is still possible to prevent this from happening elsewhere (for instance Iran).

If Cisco removed itself from the equation in China, I have no doubt that another company would quickly take its place. Still, I would like an accounting of just how far US and European companies have collaborated with China in censoring the net and I would like to see them prevented from acting against freedom in the future. At the very least, it should be mandated that they disclose their actions.

Rebecca has information on the Internet Freedom Act, and asks:

Why doesn’t the Global Internet Freedom Act address corporate complicity at all? If you’re American, write your congressperson and demand that it should.