Microsoft has taken the decision to pull a well-known Chinese Blogger's site off the Internet. The Blog, which belonged to Chinese journalist Zhao Jing, was pulled from the MSN Spaces service at the end of last year. The company claims that it was complying with the country's law in doing so.
The Blog was taken down after Zhao Jing, under the pen name of Michael Anti, wrote about the firing of an editor of the Beijing News, which in turn sparked a strike by some 100 journalists at the paper.
The Blog did not explicitly endorse or support the actions of the journalists, but may have contained key words that the Chinese version of Microsoft's Blog tool is programmed to screen or flag.
Microsoft was then contacted by a government official about the Blog. It's not clear whether the Chinese actually ordered Microsoft to take the Blog down, or if any threats were made, but nevertheless the Blog is gone. This incident highlights the problems western companies potentially face when dealing with the Chinese.