Websense has blocked two ISPs in Yemen from receiving updates after it emerged that they were using its filtering technology in a government-mandated censorship scheme.
The OpenNet Initiative, a pressure group that identifies and documents Internet filtering and surveillance, found that YemenNet and TeleYemen/Y.Net were using Websense's web filtering technology to restrict access to content, including independent news and political opposition sites (during 2006 elections, at least). The censorship was haphazard and inconsistent, not least because YemNet (the bigger of the two ISPs) purchased an insufficiently large user license, a report from ONI published last week reports. Yemen has around 150,000 internet users, mostly in businesses and schools.
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