According to various media reports, access to Apple’s iTunes website has been temporarily stopped in China. The Chinese goverment’s move may have been provoked by the release of a pro-Tibet music album on the online service.

Starting Monday, the company has received numerous complaints from stressed out iTunes customers who could not access the online store.

This week, the Chinese government's official Internet Information Center, China.org, released a statement saying Chinese citizens consider the recently made available album Songs Of Tibet to be offensive. The Information Center also added that China’s Internet users want to ban the artists featured on the album (Dave Matthews, John Mayer, Sting) from entering the country.

The bad news for Apple do not stop here unfortunately. The post went on to say that China's "netizens," currently the world’s largest group of Internet users, intend to boycott Apple’s products. The iPhone, despite the fact it hasn’t been released in China yet, might not receive the best welcome when the company finally manages to take care of all the shipment related formalities.

The company told the Associated Press it was well aware of the log-on problems but chose not to release any further comment on the situation.

The album Songs for Tibet was promoted by the Art of Peace Foundation, a Tibetan activist group that operates in the U.S., according to which, the songs support "peace initiatives and Tibetan cultural preservation projects important to the Dalai Lama."