Sunday, 29. June 2003

Swiss ISP is blocking all Internet access to some sites. Blocking just Web access is "too hard".

The german computer Magazine c't is reporting in it's actual issue (Heft 14, Seite 42, 30.06.2003) that the biggest ISP in Switzerland, "Bluewin", is blocking again sites being critical to the swiss system of justice. Bluewin is not only blocking Web access, but also email and presumably everything else, because blocking only web access would be "technically to hard".

In fall 2002 a judge ordered ISPs to block pages but in Spring 2003 a higher court dismissed the orders, see http://md.hudora.de/blog/guids/22/92/3321213426132496.html

This time the judge send no orders but a letter to ISPs mention the possibility of criminal prosecution against them.

Bluewin has a history of blocking dating at least back to 2001. In 2002 SIUG, the Swiss Internet Usergroup found that Bluewin is not only blocking critical and right-wing sites but also access to the homepages of their competition - see http://www.siug.ch/presse/Presse.20020405.html (in german)
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