Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Censorship (304 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Censorship

UPD4 EZTV Cause Website Blocking Fail for UK Sky Broadband ISP Users

10th August, 2013 (11 Comments)

Some Sky Broadband users were this week left frustrated after the ISP began sporadically blocking TorrentFreak, a well-recognised news source for the BitTorrent and P2P community. But the cause appears to have been a deliberate manipulation by one of the websites that Sky is required to block, which has highlighted the danger of overblocking.

UK Government to Finally Repeal ISP Website Blocking Powers

9th August, 2013 (5 Comments)

Hidden deep within the text of the government’s new Draft Deregulation Bill 2013, which proposes to abolish UK regulation that’s “no longer of practical use” or is a threat to the economy, can be found a small line that would finally repeal the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010’s powers for enforcing mandatory website blocking upon ISPs.

Do New UK Consumer Rules Clash with ISP Internet Censorship Proposals

6th August, 2013 (4 Comments)

The government has today proposed new amendments to the Consumer Protection Regulations (Unfair Trading) that, among other things, would “ban pre-ticked tick boxes for extras that the consumer may not want or need“. But that’s precisely what big broadband ISPs have been told to do with their network-level filtering solutions.

Do Big UK ISPs Really Plan to Block Website Forums and Swearing

5th August, 2013 (10 Comments)

The government’s controversial strategy for protecting children online by requiring the country’s largest broadband ISPs to introduce network-level filtering of adult websites (here) has come under fire again after some reports suggested that “Web Forums“, “Esoteric Content” and possibly even bad language might be on the censorship list. We attempted to find the truth.

UK Comms Review Published as Public Broadband Funding Tops £1.6bn

30th July, 2013 (0 Comments)

The government has today published a new policy paper for its much delayed Communications Bill which, among other things, sets out new powers to help Ofcom regulate the internet, telecoms and media sectors. Everything from tackling online piracy to the national broadband rollout is covered.

ASA UK Study Confirms Internet Age Verification Does Not Work

26th July, 2013 (5 Comments)

A new study from the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has revealed what everybody else already knew. Internet age verification checks do not work and children are thus registering on social media websites under false ages. Shock.

Security Fears Re-emerge Over UK ISP TalkTalk and Huawei Internet Filter

26th July, 2013 (8 Comments)

Broadband provider TalkTalk has confirmed that Chinese firm Huawei, which has recently suffered due to some high-profile concerns over state sponsored spying (here), now appears to be in full control of the ISPs network-level internet filtering service (HomeSafe) after US security firm Symantec stopped working on it over one year ago.

IET Warns UK ISP Internet Porn Filter will be Ineffective and Harmful

25th July, 2013 (7 Comments)

The influential Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), which is a professional society for 150,000 members of the global engineering and technology community, has warned that the UK government’s move to force big ISPs into blocking adult websites “will be ineffective and harmful“.

UPDATE Court Forces Big UK ISPs to Block EZTV and Yify-Torrents Websites

23rd July, 2013 (12 Comments)

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and Motion Picture Association (MPA) have won yet another court case that will force all of the country’s largest broadband ISPs to block their customers from accessing EZTV and Yify-Torrents, which were both found to be facilitating internet copyright infringement (piracy).

UPD4 Child Internet Safety and Censorship Measures Unveiled for UK ISPs

22nd July, 2013 (11 Comments)

The Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, has unveiled the government’s plan for helping to protect children online. As expected it includes a series of solutions including one that requires all of the country’s largest broadband ISPs to adopt strict network-level filtering blocks for adult websites and content (Parental Controls).

Premier League Win Court Orders for UK ISP Block of the FirstRow Website

16th July, 2013 (6 Comments)

As expected the Football Association Premier League (FAPL) has successfully won a court injunction that will force broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom to block their customers from being able to view the FirstRow website (FirstRowSports), which is often used to stream video of football and other TV sport matches.

Leaked Letter to UK ISPs Reveal Political Meddling in Adult Internet Filters

15th July, 2013 (17 Comments)

Furious ISPs have leaked the full text of a controversial new letter from the government, which at the last minute appears to call on them to introduce a number of controversial changes for improving their approach to the censorship of adult websites. It also reveals a worrying level of political meddling, possibly to satisfy the Daily Mail.

Report Calls for More Broadband and Less Internet Censorship in Schools

13th July, 2013 (2 Comments)

Estyn, the education and training inspectorate for Wales (United Kingdom), has published the first of two new reports into the standards and impact of ICT (computers, communication and related technology) in Welsh primary and secondary schools. In short, broadband needs to be better and overzealous web blocking causes problems.

Premier League to Force UK ISPs into Blocking FirstRow1 Website

24th June, 2013 (8 Comments)

The Premier League (Football) is to follow the tactics used by other Rights Holders (e.g. BPI and MPA) and intends to seek a court order that would force broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom to block their customers from being able to access the Sweden-based FirstRow1 website.

UPDATE Rights Holders Want Big UK ISPs to Block EZTV and Yify-Torrents

19th June, 2013 (8 Comments)

Some of the country’s broadband ISPs have told ISPreview.co.uk that Rights Holders are putting pressure on them to prevent their broadband customers from being able to access two extra website (EZTV and Yify-Torrents), which have both been accused of facilitating internet copyright infringement (piracy).

Big Four UK ISPs Commit GBP1m to Help Tackle Online Child Abuse

18th June, 2013 (1 Comment)

Following this week’s controversial meeting with the government’s culture secretary, Maria Miller, four of the United Kingdom’s biggest broadband ISPs (BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Sky Broadband) have agreed to collectively commit £1 million over the next 4 years to “crack down” on the creation and distribution of online child abuse content.

UPDATE Orange UK Accused of Blocking YouTube on its Mobile Network

17th June, 2013 (1 Comment)

The Open Rights Group (ORG) has heavily criticised Orange UK (EE) for allegedly blocking access to Google’s hugely popular internet video streaming site YouTube through its child safety filtering service “Safeguard“, which is switched on by default.