Search engine Bing's outage in China last week was a technical error, rather than an intentional censorship block, a source familiar with the matter said, although Chinese authorities and Microsoft have not so far commented on the topic.
From a technical perspective, a person at Microsoft Corp. said the site appeared to have been blocked in a manner similar to sites blocked by the government.
But the company had received no prior notice from authorities, and the disruption was not intentional on the part of the government, added the person, who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter.