I missed this BBC NEWS report (dated June 7), and only picked it up when reading Owen’s Blog…

Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from the main Google.com search engine, a media watchdog said.

Internet users in major Chinese cities faced difficulties accessing Google’s international site in the past week, Reporters Without Borders said.

But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected.

The site blocks politically sensitive material to comply with government censorship rules.

“It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.

“Google has just definitively joined the club of Western companies that comply with online censorship in China,” the organisation said…

It was only a matter of time, of course. But it makes the Google boys look even more naive than I had thought.