Comments on: My Website Got Blocked by Omantel

By: mfarney

mfarney — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:01:28 +0000

I had no idea that Omantel is the only provider for Oman. As you stated, they're action of blocking your site isn't justified. I'm surprised to hear you solved the problem through a third party.
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Mathew Farney - Web Hosting

By: MrLoftcraft

MrLoftcraft — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:36:17 +0000

The Arabic countries have certain laws that do not obey the common sense because of their religious motivatin. I don't understand why you were so pissed of. I mean, I know that the Arabic countries have their own laws that are very rigid and not so friendly if you get my point.
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Dedicated Servers

By: Web Master Share

Web Master Share — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:59:08 +0000

wow i really found this to be interesting. thanks for sharing

Web_mastershare
crossland-development.com

By: Blue_Chi

Blue_Chi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:56:03 +0000

Hi Kibtar, thanks for passing by.

I am not on a shared hosting package. I run a number of websites from a single server and yet only one domain name got blocked. I also used Gmail to send my email message.

There is unfortunately no “official” line to use to reach the “right department”. If you scream and shout you might eventually reach the person in charge, but from person experience that is very rare to happen and you must have a lot of patience for it. The person in charge is very unlikely to be available outside official working hours.

By: Kibtar

Kibtar — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:22:58 +0000

"Currently, the only way to have your website unblocked if it gets blocked by Omantel is to follow the procedure I followed"

for me I have got some sites unblocked in a matter of minutes, you just need to get to the right department , and by the way they work 24 hours.

in my opinion, they might have blocked your website because it is sharing its IP with other websites which are blacklisted.

this will happen in shared hosting plans.

when you sent email to admin[a t ] omantel dot com, was your email a myitlawyer.com email?
If yes then your website is for sure listed in spam blacklists.

kind regards

By: My Quotes on the National | Blue Chi's

My Quotes on the National | Blue Chi's — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:09:36 +0000

[...] In the post from which my second quote was taken I argued that that the government in Oman, unlike neighboring countries, does not in fact censor the internet on political grounds, as it relies instead of legal methods, such as the criminal law or breach of confidence to prosecute the authors. Controversial websites that criticize government officials and those that leak confidential documents are still open the public. My post made it clear that the problem of censorship in Oman is due to random acts of Omantel and the inefficiency of the company. My other blog was blocked by mistake and not because of its content. [...]

By: Global Voices Online » Oman: Random Internet Censorship

Global Voices Online » Oman: Random Internet Censorship — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:13:22 +0000

[...] months ago, I discovered that a blog I keep on IT law in Oman got blocked while I was abroad. It took me a whole month to get it unblocked where I had to make an official [...]

By: Jiji

Jiji — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:38:02 +0000

I don't know if you're aware but Skype is blocked by Omantel as well. I was back in Oman about 2 months ago and tried to log in but for some reason nothing happened. When I tried going to Skype's official website, it also was blocked. I sent an email to the address you mentioned above and although my email did go through, I received no reply.

I suspect Omantel realised how much money their losing if their customers use Skype to make practically free international calls and decided to wipe out the competition.

It just doesn't seem right that they have such powers. Shouldn't the TRA be responsible for ''censorship'', and I use the word censorship loosely because like you said, porn can be found by a 5 year old!