The Chinese government has come down like a ton of bricks on that American icon Google, basically branding it a smut merchant, ordering it to block links to foreign sites and apparently disabling - at least sporadically - Google Search, Google Apps, and Gmail if not all Google services.

The government is believed to be retaliating for the widespread hostile reception to its edict to pre-install its badly written and technically flawed Green Dam net nanny software on all PCs that ship in China starting July 1.

China is under U.S. and EU pressure to abandon its abrupt decree, which came down May 19.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk sent a letter to their Chinese counterparts Wednesday saying "China is putting companies in an untenable position by requiring them, with virtually no public notice, to pre-install software that appears to have broad-based censorship implications and network security issues."

The letter also said the order might violate World Trade Organization rules and threaten trade relations.

The Chinese are also evidently embarrassed by the fact that the University of Michigan and others found that parts of Green Dam, created under a Chinese government contract by two local companies, were copied from a U.S. company's software.

After first warning HP and Dell, Solid Oak Software has subsequently sent cease-and-desist letters to Sony, Toshiba, Acer, Gateway, and Lenovo threatening damages if they ship Green Dam.

Solid Oak has gotten no answers to its letters and according to the Financial Times some boxes with the software have already been delivered. The vendors are afraid the filtering software will depress PC sales in China.

Green Dam is supposed to protect Chinese kids from pornography but it can also be used to block politically sensitive sites or anything the Communists want.

The Chinese government has accused Google of containing "a massive number of links" to naughty sites but the shill it used to complain about Google on local TV was outed as a government stooge.

• Chinese Government Backs Off For Now