Hi.

The Fifaworldcup.com site has been banned in Saudi Arabia.

Ever since this country was defeated and excluded from the upcoming and current matches, the site has been periodically banned.

I have myself submitted this info to the local Isp here, KACST, which controls the whole internet access for this country, but it doesn't do anything useful except getting the ban removed for a day or two. At the time of this writing, the site has again been banned, and the soccer pages on yahoo.com have been banned also. Reasons given so far on telephone calls to local Isps: "You should contact Kacst directly" and the only way to contact Kacst is via their forms. Their phone lines are all arabic-message machines which never return your calls.

Attatched is the recent snapshot of the page.

Get disqualified from Fifa and in turn ban their site, such attitude should be noticed by the fifa body. The only main Isp here, Kacst, which gives connections to all other smaller isps, is governed by the government itself, thus this action can't be attributed to a single persons idea but as the whole governments idea. Things like these make me cherish the old memories of London and California, where such things can be disputed and discussed, if they ever happen that is. Here, they provide a url with a form to submit an appeal on why the restricted site should be un-restricted. Nothing more anyone can do here.

Wow, say this isn't so! That is very sad if indeed done on purpose like that.

There are like 200+ countries and only 32 get to participate - better than not qualifying at all.

That is so I am afraid to say. They made it to the final 32 but even then they have to show their true nature in this way by letting off their anger in at least some form for not being able to score a single goal in the matches.

atleast they made it in. there always has to be some team to loss.

Yeah, I wonder if all the countries that loose will ban the site in their respective countries resulting with only one country, who will win the match, to let users access the site. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by InfoDoma
Get disqualified from FifaBeen following the football and don't remember reading about Saudi Arabia getting banned??!??!

:rolleyes:

Originally posted by a:\
Been following the football and don't remember reading about Saudi Arabia getting banned??!??!

For what I can see you are using a proxie to get to that site is there any reason why you are using a proxie.

Originally posted by WCSWEB
For what I can see you are using a proxie to get to that site is there any reason why you are using a proxie.

Perhaps it is at the ISP end, perhaps they are required to.

You have a lot of Kooks in Saudi Arabia. I opened a service once that allowed people to purchase their own private proxy site. Since they had their own private pass protected IP, it worked well. I knew better than to advertise the main site, which of course got blocked as soon as a mass email was sent out to Suadi residents (which it was actually designed for Americans who work in Saudi, but many Suadi's liked). But I had contacts at KACST, and I was soon able to advertise the main site without being blocked. That was because, given the proper info by my buddies there, anyone coming to the main site from KACST would see a random religious site. Due to certain probs, I had to shut down the service, but it was going well and becoming more successful.

As for what I meant by kooks......One Saudi national emailed me back saying that his government is good and only blocks evil sites.... So there's your answer, Fifaworldcup.com was blocked because it is evil :D

Ditto. All isps here are *required* to have that setting if they want to apply to become an official isp. Thus, without proxy, no net here.

Originally posted by appletreats


Perhaps it is at the ISP end, perhaps they are required to.

there are alot of "kooks" everywhere.


Originally posted by Webdude
You have a lot of Kooks in Saudi Arabia.......

Originally posted by Webdude

One Saudi national emailed me back saying that his government is good and only blocks evil sites.... So there's your answer, Fifaworldcup.com was blocked because it is evil :D

And he's not wrong, Yahoo and FIFA are evil :D