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Mabrook Jeeran! :-)

Published at June 16, 2007 in blogging, UAE and technology.
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So Etisalat, one of the 6 largest companies in the Middle East in terms of capitalization and revenues, has finally decided to unblock Jeeran! YAY!

Jeeran_Etisalat

Last May I noticed that some of the blogs hosted on Jeeran were blocked. At first, I thought that it was those couple of blogs that I frequently visited, but then I realized it was the whole Jeeran network! Not a smart move on behalf of Etisalat. It just proved that logic and reason is hardly used when it comes to unblocking websites.



Anyways I’m not even going to get into the ongoing discussion of why Etisalat blocks sites with no ration as opposed to the many other "objectionable" things we see in the streets of Dubai.

So I got an email from Jeeran on June, 10th which said:

أعضاء جيران الأعزاء

بعد التحية والسلام،

نتمنى أن تصلكم رسالة جيران وحضراتكم وجميع الأهل فيالإمارات الشقيق بأحسن الأحوال.

لقد وصلنا قبل أسبوع أن موقع جيران قد تم حجبه فيالإمارات العربية المتحدة ولم يعد باستطاعة أعضاء جيران الدخول إلى حساباتهمومواقعهم، علما أن موقع جيران هو عبارة عن شبكة اجتماعية على الإنترنت للبحث عنالأصدقاء القدامى ولتحميل الصور ومشاركتها مع الأصدقاء وللحصول على مساحة مجانيةللكتابة والتعبير عن الأفكار من خلال المواقع والمدونات، وذلك بالطبع محدود بشروطاستخدام جيران التي تمنع أي تعدي على الدين والأخلاق.

ورغم الرقابة المفروضة في جيران إلا أننا فوجئنا بقيام شركة الاتصالات في الإمارات بحجب الموقع!
لذلك ولثقتنا العالية بكم نرجو منكممساعدتنا على فك الحجب عن جيران وذلك عن طريق مراسلة شركة الاتصالات في الإماراتعلى العنوان التاليhttp://feedback.ecompany.ae/ وطلب فكالحجب عن موقع جيران لإيمانكم أن محتواه يستحق العرض وأننا نبذل ما بوسعنا للمحافظةعلى مستوى الموقع الأخلاقي دوما.

نحن نثق بعائلة جيران في الإمارات ونشكركم جميعا علىتعاونكم معنا وثقتكم بنا. و نحن نامل أن هذا السوء الفهم لموقع جيران سوف يحلبسرعة.

تحياتنا.

I was more than happy to oblige, and immediately contacted Etisalat to unblock the website, to which I got an email that said:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Etisalat Customer Care Center.

We are extremely sorry for the fact that the site you tried to visit was blocked. Kindly let us know the URL of the website you would like to access; that in your opinion should not be blocked & if the content of that site is found to be of non-objectionable nature, we would gladly unblock that site. As far as pornography sites are concerned we are blocking all the sites that come across our notice.

Thank you for your anticipated co-operation & understanding in this matter. We appreciate feedback from our esteemed customers in order to provide the best possible service, do let us know if there is anything more we can do to make your time spent on the net a more enjoyable & satisfying experience.

Once again we thank you again for your kind consideration & contribution to the UAE Internet community.

Best regards,

Now Etisalat maintains that the blocking process is automated, but a friend of mine who works at Etisalat confirmed that they actually have a team dedicated to looking for new websites that offer "objectionable" material to add them to their controversial list of blocked websites. Now what kind of job is that? You start your day at 7:30 just to start looking for new porn sites!

Some of the websites blocked by Etisalat:

- All pornographic websites.

- hi5 and other social websites.

- flickr

- YouTube (parts of it)

- Any domain ending with .il (Israeli hosted websites).

- Torrents search websites

Anyways, mabrook Jeeran. I’m happy I contributed to the cause J

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10 Responses to “Mabrook Jeeran! :-)”

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  1. Gravatar Icon 1 Sel3
    Jun 16th, 2007 at 4:45 pm

    this is good news. i send them a request a while ago, they replied it cannot be unblocked because of dating :?: i was wondering what about facebook? but anyhow it is good to have jeeran bloggers back

  2. Gravatar Icon 2 Who-Sane
    Jun 16th, 2007 at 6:41 pm

    Yes sel3, it’s good having the jeeran peeps back

  3. Gravatar Icon 3 Tala
    Jun 16th, 2007 at 10:36 pm

    i never knew that UAE has such strict policies, do you know that people are not allowed to protest in the UAE not even through a permission, not even in the media city and all the broadcasting stations there don’t have direct satellite uplink, it has to go through samacom www.samacom.com/clients/htm

  4. Gravatar Icon 4 wonders
    Jun 17th, 2007 at 9:52 am

    You know what, i have a blog on jeeran, but i am not gona send this for one reason only, i sent jeeran an email to their support address and they didn’t even bother to reply!!
    as much as i am upset with Etisalat i am also mad with Jeeran. i just noticed that Jmeelty 3la 7ale, jeeran is unblocked now.

  5. Gravatar Icon 5 Who-sane
    Jun 17th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    Thanks a lot for the info Tala, I never really knew all that :smile:

  6. Gravatar Icon 6 Who-sane
    Jun 17th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    oops, sorry to hear of your bad experience with jeeran, they were probably inundated with complaints from their UAE users

  7. Gravatar Icon 7 Moey
    Jun 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    wtf flickr?

  8. Gravatar Icon 8 Jeeran Community Leader
    Jun 20th, 2007 at 11:17 am

    Dear Who-sane.
    I would like to thank you very much for your contribution in unblocking Jeeran in UAE and for your nice words in this post.

    Although blocking Jeeran was so disappointing to us but there was a good thing about it; it made us realize how much Jeeran members and Jeeran blogs readers love Jeeran and believe in us. It was really great to receive all that numbers of emails from people –members and non members- asking about the reason for blocking Jeeran blogs and offering to help unblock the site.

    And I would like to apologize to “wonders” for not replying to her email although we didn’t receive it; I made a search in the support center outlook inbox and I found no emails from you. We would never ignore any email from our users and we appreciate every single word they send to us.
    Any way we wish you a good luck in your new blog and you are always welcome to return back to your first home any time.

    Again, many thanks to “Who-sane” and to every one contacted the Etisalat to unblock Jeeran or posted about this issue.

    Regards,

    Hala Taha
    Jeeran Community Leader

  9. Gravatar Icon 9 Who-Sane
    Jun 20th, 2007 at 12:13 pm

    Dear Hala, thanks for dropping by and leaving your sweet comment. You’re more than welcome :smile:

    Like many Etisalat subscribers, I was frustrated with the blocking and felt compelled to let them know that in fact there’s nothing wrong with Jeeran, and if there are 2 or 3 “objectionable” users that doesn’t justify the blocking of the whole website!

    But anyways, glad you’re back online in the UA of E! :grin:

  10. Gravatar Icon 10 اشپز
    Aug 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Do you mind to post some more information about this ?…

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