NEWS5 July 2010

Rights group prepares legal challenge to Turkey’s Google ban

Data analytics Europe

TURKEY— An internet rights group is mounting a legal challenge to the Turkish government’s ongoing ban on Google-owned YouTube – and a wider ban on other Google services, including its web analytics package.

The Guardian reported over the weekend that the Internet Technologies Association will make the argument that the restrictions illegally discriminate against millions of internet users. The association joins the country’s president Abdullah Gul in opposing the government’s actions.

Google users in Turkey have been complaining of a lack of access to services such as YouTube, Google Analytics, Docs, Translate and Books, among others, since early June when the government imposed a block on certain IP addresses Google uses.

The access problems appear to be linked to an ongoing ban on YouTube in the country, which dates back to 2007, when the government took offence to a video posted on the site that allegedly insulted Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

According to a report on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Google has offered to block access to sensitive material in Turkey but will not meet demands to remove it entirely from YouTube.

@RESEARCH LIVE

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