After Facebook and Twitter, Microsoft's Bing also 'walled off' in China

While its rival Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010, Bing has continued to operate in the country along with Microsoft-owned Skype

Microsoft Corp's Bing search engine has been blocked in China following a government order, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

China Unicom, one of China's major state-owned telecommunication companies, confirmed the government had ordered a block on Bing, the FT said.

Attempting to open cn.bing.com results in an error message, though users can still access Bing's international site using a virtual private network (VPN), which allows people to circumvent China's "Great Firewall" of censorship.

Facebook, Twitter and a host of Western media websites are blocked in China.

While its rival Google shut down its search engine in China in 2010, Bing had continued to operate in the country along with Microsoft-owned Skype.

On Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media site, people complained about the lack of access, with some speculating that Bing too had been "walled off".

Others aired their dissatisfaction about having to use Baidu, China's largest domestic search service.

"I can't open Bing, but I don't want to use Baidu -- what to do?" wrote one user.

"Bing is actually dead -- is this to force me to use Baidu??" said another, cursing.