Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from Google.com, according to a media watchdog.

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

It said the search engine became inaccessible throughout the country on May 31, and then blocking gradually extended to Google News and Google Mail.

The organisation condemned what it called "the current unprecedented level of internet filtering" in China.

However, the censored Chinese version, Google.cn, which drew much condemnation when it was launched in January, is still accessible.

Reporters Without Borders said it deplored that the 17th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, on June 4, had been used to tighten the vice on Chinese internet users.

"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.

"It is deplorable that Chinese internet users are forced to wage a technological war against censorship in order to access banned content."

Meeting with reporters in Washington yesterday, Google's founder, Sergey Brin, said the company had agreed to censorship demands only after Chinese authorities blocked its service in that country.

Mr Brin described the demands of the Chinese authorities as "a set of rules that we weren't comfortable with".

"We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service and perhaps make more of a difference," Mr Brin added.

He also hinted that the company might reconsider its decision to accommodate China's censorship demands, saying "Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense."

Reporters Without Borders also claimed the Chinese authorities had largely managed to neutralise software designed to sidestep censorship.

Bill Xia, the US-based exile who created Dynapass, software designed to get behind China’s firewall, said the jamming of this type of programme had reached an unprecedented level and he was convinced the authorities were deploying considerable hardware and software resources to achieve it.

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