14 DAY TRIAL // Millions of blogs created with Google's Blogger are unavailable in Ethiopia, the users criticizing the local authorities for censorship. It seems that it all started when the Horn of Africa, a peninsula of East Africa, blocked several services in the country including the Google Blogger. As you might know, Blogger is a huge online community of bloggers that are continuously posting articles, ideas and thoughts. Although there is no official reason for the restriction, the local authorities invoked technical problems and sustained they have no intention of blocking the access to certain products. According to the Meskel Square, the problem was reported by the web monitor OpenNet firm that sustained numerous IP addresses are blocked in Ethiopia.
"We have run diagnostic tests using volunteers in Ethiopia which indicate that they are blocking IP addresses," OpenNet research director Robert Faris said according to Meskel Square. "We may have technical problems from time to time. But we have not done anything like that and we have no intention of doing anything like that", Information Ministry spokesman Zemedkun Tekle tried to defend the local authorities, according to the same source.
In the past, Google encountered similar problems only with YouTube, the online video sharing service being banned in several countries all over the world. The first one was Brazil, the country deciding to block the video service after Daniela Cicarelli, Ronaldo's ex-wife sued Google for publishing videos without authorization. Then came Turkey, the authorities restricting the residents' access to the company's product after incriminatory clips were published on YouTube. Recently, it was reported that YouTube in unavailable in Thailand but there was no official reason for the restriction. In each of these instances, the Mountain View company struggled to fix the problems and make the product available, as YouTube is more and more challenged by other similar solutions.