The popular cloud storage site, Dropbox, appears to have been granted a reprieve in China. The site has been blocked over there since 2010 due to some potentially politically sensitive material stored on the US-based service. While the reasoning is still unclear, the ban now looks to have been lifted according to Tech in Asia who said:
It’s not clear when Dropbox became unblocked in China. We noticed it was accessible in the country late last week, and then we waited a few days to verify it wasn’t a freak result and also to check that it’s available throughout the country. In addition to personal cloud syncing, we’ve also verified that sharing files publicly via Dropbox now works in the country.
This may give Dropbox an advantage over Google Drive in the marketplace, which has been blocked in China since its launch. Dropbox may also be headed for an IPO soon and this is sure to make prospect investors a little happier, however, the Chinese Internet landscape is dominated by local entities with far more generous storage deals.
For example, Tencent gives away 10 TB of free storage which will be available oversees soon too. Also other services like Baidu and Qihoo each offer 1 free TB, which trumps the few GB’s given away by Dropbox.
via The Next Web
