Letter to MOC & IT on Yahoo Groups blocking

Government of India (MIT) has by an order dated 10/09/03 blocked the website "groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhun". Even though the block order was for a particular group, Dishnet has blocked the entire groups.yahoo.com domain thus blocking all groups including cyberlaws4india group. The exact reasons for the blocking are not known. It also appears that VSNL Chennai has not blocked the site. They have either ignored the order or have implemented it only for the specific group. The home page of the group does not indicate any significant activity or activity inimical to India. It would have been better for MIT to have been transparent on the reasons for the blocking as this has resulted in a censorship of the entire yahoo groups domain.

A letter sent to MOC in this regard is reproduced below.

Letter to MOC & IT on Yahoo Groups blocking

By an order dated September 10, 2003, (Copy available at http://www.naavi.org/cl_editorial_03/block_yahoo_order.htm) your department has send an order to Dishnet DSL Chennai to block groups.yahoo.com/groups/kynhu.

I suppose the department believes that there are valid reasons for the order though it is necessary in the public interest to state the reason for the blocking in the order.

However, it must be noted that Dishnet has implemented the order by blocking the entire domain groups.yahoo.com. As a result hundreds of other groups many of whom serve public interests have been blocked. I manage groups called Cyberlaws4india, cyberdemocracy, kannadabalaga etc and subscribe to groups such as e-gov, Image Management, New Media Forum,. Cricket, Web law, Cyber-Law India, E-Commerce Legal Issues etc and I am deprived of the access to each of these groups by reason of the order and its wrong implementation.

I have myself pointed out in the past that there are some clubs in the indiatimes.com domain which carry hard core pornography stuff and drawn the attention of the authorities through my website www.naavi.org. I have not however found any action on them. I am therefore surprised that an innocuous group kynhu appears to have been picked for blocking. This does not appear to be a correct decision and therefore requires the department to be transparent about the reasons for the blocking of the site.