Hilmar, either Google reacts to IP address or it has localised DNS. Here in New Zealand when I hit
www.google.com I find myself at
www.google.co.nz . If I browse via our US proxy server it stays
www.google.com. I guess your recent experience is Google's latest (hamfisted) effort to respect local norms rather than imposing North American hegemony!
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
