Emirates Telecommunications Corporation - Internet Censorship

Internet Censorship

Etisalat operates an Internet content filtering system that blocks access to web resources. The web resources are claimed to be controversial or offensive (i.e. sexually explicit content, certain political and religious websites, anonymizers and proxies) or harmful (i.e. numeric IP addresses, known phishing or malicious websites, botnet command servers). The use of content filtering is mandated by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates.

The type of content that is restricted by Etisalat includes:

• Pornography, nudity and sexually explicit content.
• Certain media-sharing websites
• Anti-Islamic websites.
• Websites criticizing the United Arab Emirates (such as UAEprison and Arab Times)
• Anonymous proxy sites (such as vtunnel, pzeg, etc.)
• Gay and Lesbian Rights websites (such as Gaydar, Mogenic etc.)
• Numerical IP address links (for example, http://10.11.1.1/)
• Voice over IP services providers' websites (such as Skype Vonage)

There are claims that Etisalat breaks the rules of net neutrality by throttling peer-to-peer, gaming and other types of network traffic in order to reduce the load on its oversubscribed international links. The effect of this interference is most noticeable during weekends or periods of high network use.

The overall efficiency of the country-wide content filtering is unclear, as many of the technologically savvy users have discovered tools and methods to bypass the content filter, such as using Tor.