Google took responsibility last night for a sharp increase in the failure of searches in China using its servers, saying that it had configured them by accident to resemble a site banned by the Chinese government.
The rapid increase late yesterday in failed searches made in China using Google's servers had initially triggered fears Beijing was stepping up its retaliation against the US internet company in the dispute over censorship.
Google has feared a backlash from Beijing since it announced last week that it was diverting its Chinese search service to its Hong Kong site so that it could circumvent Beijing censoring politically-sensitive searches.