Google using regional specific domains on Blogger hosted blogs to enable selective censoring

Google has made a significant change in policy with Blogger blogs.

Blogger based blogs would now redirect to region specific ccTLD for blogs hosted on BlogSpot.

For example, if you are visiting http://dellindiaexperiences.blogspot.com in India, you would be redirected to http://dellindiaexperiences.blogspot.in.

Google said that this policy would help them in obeying the local laws and orders without removing content from individual blogs.

Blogs and content blocked in individual countries would be blocked on these regional domain names. International users would still get access to them.

Google is providing an option to access the .com version by appending /ncr to the blogs (eg. http://dellindiaexperiences.blogspot.com/ncr . This would run the blog on the blogspot.com for a short period of time. It is not clear if this would bypass the blocked content on Blogger hosted blogs.

Google said:

Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.