BlogSpot blocked by Indian ISPs

It appears India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued a directive to Indian ISPs to block BlogSpot and TypePad, and several ISPs have complied. LiveJournal is spared. I’ve been unable to access BlogSpot since Friday — the connection times out.

Here are reports from Mridula and Neha Viswanathan, and on DesiPundit. There’s a new Bloggers Collective group for tracking updates. Shivam Vij is currently working the phone with ISPs and government departments and so far has confirmation that this blockage was not ordered by CERT-IN, the only body authorised to issue orders to ISPs under the IT Act 2003. The order came from DoT on Friday (CERT-IN is required to route orders via DoT) and the list of sites being blocked is not public. Shivam’s asked for the list but been told it is “highly confidential”.