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While Google admits that offering its services over IPv6 is still in its infancy, the company today announced the option for accessing Google services over IPv6.

Last year, Google started offering Google search over IPv6 on IPv6-only websites like ipv6.google.com requiring IPv6 connection, but other Google products have not been generally available over IPv6, says Google. "That's why we created Google over IPv6."

Google services available over IPv6 currently include Google search (including image search, blog search and code search), Alerts, Calendar, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, News, Notebook, Reader and Sites. The company plans to add new services in the future, and users are encouraged the check back often.

Currently, Google is only enabling IPv6 on a per-ISP basis — system administrator, Tom Limoncelli, explains why: "There are some OSs [operating systems] that have default configurations that get confused if they see an AAAA record [IPv6 addresses are represented in the Domain Name System by AAAA resource records] yet don't have full IPv6 connectivity.  In particular, if you have IPv6 enabled at your house, but your ISP doesn't support IPv6, there is a good chance that your computer isn't smart enough to know that having local IPv6 isn't the same as IPv6 connectivity all the way across the internet.  Thus, it will send out requests over IPv6 which will stall as the packets get dropped by the first non-IPv6 router (your ISP)."

ISPs that meet Google's requirement for IPv6 and are interested in receiving Google over IPv6 are encouraged to contact the company.

Related Links:
Access Google services over IPv6 Google
Google Over IPv6 Coming Soon Slashdot
Google enables IPv6 for most services (but there is a catch!) Everything Sysadmin

Other sources:  UPDATED Jan 20, 2009 1:43 PM PDT
Google ramps up IPv6 mission, google.com a year away Network World, Jan.20.2009

Related topics: Access Providers, DNS, Internet Protocol, IP Addressing, IPv6, Web