viding internet service in the UAE in
1995. In 1997, both Etisalat the com-
munity realized the negative aspects
of the web and started working, with
directives from the Government, to
protect the public from accessing
sites under prohibited content cat-
egory.
He added: “Etisalat is currently work-
ing closely with TRA to implement
and propose further improvements
through manual and automatic
blocking of any site that falls under
the prohibited content category and
unblocking websites that no longer
fall under that category”.
Al Hashimi explained that in order to
improve the mechanism of blocking
websites, Etisalat established two
types of filtering. “Local Filtering” is
used to block and unblock websites
upon customers’ requests while “Au-
tomatic Filtering” uses a “Smart Fil-
ter” database which contains more
than 25 million web addresses. The
“smart filter” sorts these addresses
and groups them under categories
like gambling, dating, news, etc.
Mr. Abdul Rahman Al Marzouqi, Di-
rector of Internet Development at
TRA said “Although the Internet is a
valuable source of information and a
fundamental tool for communication,
commerce and businesses, it has led
to the emergence of big challenges,
particularly electronic crimes and il-
legal online activities and contents”.
“Defining the scope of these issues
varies from one country to another
based on local regulations, cultural
sensitivity, technological capabilities,
expertise and local initiatives aimed
at combating such issues. Online
threats include offensive contents,
online gambling, distribution of drugs
and medicines, virus and malicious
code attacks, hacking, spam, chil-
dren exploitation, privacy violation,
terrorism, phishing and online fraud,”
Al Marzouqi added.
Al Marzouqi said that there are two
ways to eliminate exposure to such
threats; shutting down such websites
or blocking access to their contents.
Shutting a website means eliminat-
ing or deleting the content at the ser-
vice provider’s side while blocking a
website means preventing the user
from accessing a specific content or
activity.
He clarified that the UAE adopts both
the ways in different contexts de-
pending on a number of factors re-
lated to content, the domain name,
response of hosting company and
effectiveness of the method.
Al Marzouqi indicated that in 2006,
the UAE launched its Internet Ac-
cess Management policy which is
a regulatory tool developed by TRA
with the aim of eliminating exposure
to harmful contents. Under the pol-
icy, internet providers are commit-
ted to blocking contents as per the
defined categories in the regulatory
tool which also sets the necessary
procedures to deal with reports and
requests related to blocking and un-
blocking of online contents.
“With the application of the market
regulatory and licensing law in the
UAE, TRA announced its policy and
procedures connected to internet ac-
cess in July 2008. The policy con-
trols and regularizes categories of
prohibited contents and sets the pro-
cedures to be followed by licensees,”
he added.
Al Marzouqi urged the two licensed
companies in the country (Etisalat
and DU) to block all contents that are
either indirectly connected to web-
sites that allow access to blocked
contents or directly connected to
sites that deal with drugs, criminal
activities, nudity and other illegal ac-
tivities.
However, Dr. Elhami Hassan com-
plained about blocking some medical
websites in spite of their importance
in updating doctors on the latest
developments in their fields. He re-
vealed that sometimes he has to use
unblocking software in order to ac-
cess such sites.
Hassan sees that random blocking is
not right since it depends on group-
ing websites under certain catego-
ries without considering the nature of
each individual website which can be
professionally useful. He urged the
authorities to reconsider the issue.
Mohamed Al Ghanim:
80% of blocked
websites are obscene
• 4.2 Million obscene websites around the world
• 2.1 billion internet users globally
• 45% of internet users are under 25
• 1.3 million internet subscribers in the UAE
Issue 1
October
2013
23
