Friday, February 11, 2011

Fight Websites Blocking And Internet Censorship In India

Blogspot has been subjected to domain blocking on numerous occasions in India. The latest in the series is the blocking of Blogspot domain by Indian internet service providers (ISPs).

As more and more blog owners are reporting non access to their blogs, the issue must be investigated. In fact, a dedicated thread has been started at Google’s help forum to address this problem.

Till now there has been neither any confirmation nor denial of this issue by Google. An official response from Google may be expected very soon.

However, blocking of websites or internet censorship should not be taken lightly in India. Information technology act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000) was amended by the information technology amendment act, 2008 (IT Act, 2008) to confer unrestricted and unregulated internet censorship, website blocking and e-surveillance powers upon Indian government and its agencies.

Even after Kapil Sibal took charge of the ministry of communication and information technology (MCIT), nothing in this regard has improved. Even he is indifferent towards providing adequate safeguards to protect civil liberties of Indian citizens from vast and unregulated powers under the IT Act, 2000.

Fortunately, some self defence measures have been suggested by noted techno legal expert of India Praveen Dalal. He has also provided the resources through with the blocking of websites and internet censorship can be defeated in India.

Internet users in India can avail these self defence measures and resources mentioned at the site. We would keep on updating all of you about the situation.