Argentina: ISPs Block 1,000,000 Blogs Instead of One

  

Last week we saw that Ofcom, the UK regulator, concluded that "All site blocking techniques can be circumvented" (here) and, as a result "the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will not impose website blocking responsibilities on service providers – at least for now" (here).

While the UK case refers to the complicated issue of copyright infringements, a new case in Argentina shows us that there are other consequences when ISPs are trying to block a single web site ("leakymails") using the simplest method of blocking the IP address.   

Pedro Less Andrade (pictured) reports in the "Official Google Blog America" that ISPs in Argentina "are preventing access to the IP address 216.239.32.2. According to the article published on the website of the National Communications Commission, we infer that this block could be due to widespread compliance with a requirement of criminal justice, which we believe should only affect sites identified therein. The blocked IP address linked to more than one million blogs hosted on Blogger, containing various authors. Unfortunately, the technique of blocking IP addresses implemented affects not only access to clearly identified sites for justice, but hundreds of thousands of blogs that have nothing to do with the judicial measure.

See "Blogs bloqueados en Argentina" - here.

(Pinging to the site at the time or wtiring this post shows me a different IP address).

See a similar case from Israel - "Israeli Police Instructs ISPs to Block Gambling Web Sites" - here.