Is vodacom restricting some websites?

SinghDude said:
@ Jannie.

What are you suggesting ?

Can you confirm if Vodacom actually restricts any websites... ?
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Only under our ACM (Adult content Management) system, which is an opt-in and actually one of our best kept secrets. Think we're still the only major ISP that offers this. We problably should tell more parents, who worry what their kids do online, about this.

Otherwise I'm not aware of anyother sites being blocked. It's for sure not policy.
SinghDude said:
Ps. Not everybody is educated and familiar with the legal implications between ISP's and their customers !
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I agree. Thus when someone states, on a public forum, they personally checked a specific law, it's important for them to post it on request so we all can be educated.
 
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Segg said:
"Illigal for an ISP to actively intercept or monitor communications", is that not what Vodacom is doing whilst irritating the abusers? or is there another method?, I'm just curious that's all :whistle:
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'Intercept or monitor communications' means an ISP should not eavesdrop on a private conversation or communication. Relevant laws exist for goverment to request (via court order) access to a data stream so they can intercept.
 
Some DSL ISP's block (or used to) certain sites from being accessed. I.e torrific.com - which is now defunct because of SOPA. Can't really garra them about it though, since it's stated in most TOS's that they don't want you converting torrent traffic to http .

Luckily for the OP Jannie said they aren't actively blocking the site's he mentioned, so I'm sure he can get it fixed.
 
According to the Electronic Communications act it's illegal to intercept or actively monitor communications without the expressed permission of the sender except for the purpose of transmitting such communications. Blocking access to sites like outoilet would require monitoring of the communication and would therefor be illegal but I don't think that's what's heppening here.

Some have even argued that port shaping is illegal under this. Though that is arguable packet inspection certainly is illegal without question.
 
Swa said:
According to the Electronic Communications act it's illegal to intercept or actively monitor communications without the expressed permission of the sender except for the purpose of transmitting such communications. Blocking access to sites like outoilet would require monitoring of the communication and would therefor be illegal but I don't think that's what's heppening here.

Some have even argued that port shaping is illegal under this. Though that is arguable packet inspection certainly is illegal without question.
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IANAL...

But I think that we need to differentiate between *active* interception and *passive* blocking. The ECT Act does make it it illegal to actively eavesdrop on customers without a court order. So if your ISP had a server where they collected all your data a read through it then that would be illegal.

However if an ISP uses an automated system to block or restrict content then they are in fact protected by another piece of law (another clause in the ETC act IIRC).
 
Ambo, afaik there's no distinction between automated and actions with human intervention BUT there isn't anything against it either. We do not have any case law on this issue and as these things usually go the relevant legislation can be interpreted in many ways. It's ultimately the judge that decide the intent of the law. Where one rules the rest will usually follow like sheep so we're waiting...

If I were betting I would bet on your interpretation that it's to prevent eavesdropping but if I were an ISP I would still not take the chance.

I tried Acts Online but it's not working for me now. Maybe for someone else.
 
Chapter XIII, § 86 of the ECT Act is probably the bit that people are trying to refer to above and it talks about:
a person who intentionally accesses or intercepts any data without authority or permission
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It specifically talks about "a person" and not about "a system". It does not talk about filtering and if it did then it would effectively make firewalls and spam filters illegal.

There is another piece if legislation that provides rules within which a service provider may block or filter traffic on their network to protect network integrity. Of course I'm struggling to find it ;) but it refers more directly to the issue that is being discussed here.

Disclaimer: IANAL :D
 
a ISP cant just block a site. look at the drama going on with EU and TPB. If they could simply just "block" it wouldnt have taken a court order. Im no lawyer though...
 
@ Jannievanzyl - This thread has now moved into the legal field. My thoughts are based on logic that any ISP will not block access to any site "per Si". When trying to open sites have been successfull and suddenly not being able to open one particular one, are signs of a software/hardware problem. Just my 2c worth Jannie.:D
 
Ivanr said:
@ Jannievanzyl - This thread has now moved into the legal field. My thoughts are based on logic that any ISP will not block access to any site "per Si". When trying to open sites have been successfull and suddenly not being able to open one particular one, are signs of a software/hardware problem. Just my 2c worth Jannie.:D
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100%.

Remember mobile operators WANT you to use as much data as possible, you pay per MB after all. So why the hell would we want to block you from accessing the interwebs? Unless you asked us to do so, via something like ACM.
 
msamito said:
since yesterday I took out my blackberry sim card and cashed in my talking points for data bundles, inserted the sim on my modem and tried visiting sites like freshwap and rapidlibrary so I get redirected to this vodacom web page "http://www.vodacom.co.za/personal/main/webrestriced" and i'm like saying to myself :wtf:, Is it only me or is everybody experiencing this?
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Hi msamito

Can you kindly pm me your number where the talking points was converted to data bundles?
 
I'm also experiencing the same redirects to http://www.vodacom.co.za/personal/main/webrestriced when I try to visit some websites like

www.thepiratebay.org
nzbmatrix.com

I didn't do the child lock thing and this seems to have started when I activated a 500MB bundle on my number (Talk 75S) earlier this month but I didn't really use the number for data before then so I'm not too sure. Can anyone assist?
 
efitol said:
I'm also experiencing the same redirects to http://www.vodacom.co.za/personal/main/webrestriced when I try to visit some websites like

www.thepiratebay.org
nzbmatrix.com

I didn't do the child lock thing and this seems to have started when I activated a 500MB bundle on my number (Talk 75S) earlier this month but I didn't really use the number for data before then so I'm not too sure. Can anyone assist?
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Just opened www.thepiratebay.org via Vodacom 3G without any problems as a matter of interest.
 
efitol said:
Yeah I have other Voda sims as well and they work fine, just this one particular sim that's giving issues.
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Just to rule it out...please PM me your number and I will check the Agre restriction setting on the line. I know you said you have not changed it...but lets just double check it to rule it out seeing that it must be something specific to this line then that is not affecting your other sims.
 
Ockie said:
Just to rule it out...please PM me your number and I will check the Agre restriction setting on the line. I know you said you have not changed it...but lets just double check it to rule it out seeing that it must be something specific to this line then that is not affecting your other sims.
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Thanks, PM sent :)
 
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