India has lifted the obtain ban on VLC, greater than 9 months after it mysteriously blocked the official web site of the favored media playback software program within the South Asian market. VideoLAN, the favored software program’s developer, filed a legal notice final month in search of an evidence from the nation’s IT and Telecom ministries for the block order.
The Ministry of Electronics and IT has eliminated its ban on the web site of VLC media participant, New Delhi-based advocacy group Web Freedom Basis, which offered authorized assist to VideoLAN, stated on Monday. VideoLAN confirmed the order.
“This ban was put into place with none prior discover and with out giving VideoLAN the chance of a listening to, which went in opposition to the 2009 Blocking Guidelines and the regulation laid down by the Supreme Courtroom in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India. This was unusual as a result of VLC Media Participant is an open-source software program which is utilized by almost 80 million Indians,” IFF stated in a press release.
Indian telecom operators started blocking VideoLAN’s official web site, the place it lists hyperlinks to downloading VLC, in February of this year, VideoLAN president and lead developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf informed in an earlier interview. India is likely one of the largest markets for VLC.
The overwhelming majority of individuals depend on VLC’s official web site to obtain the favored utility.
“Most main ISPs [internet service providers] are banning the location, with various strategies,” Kempf stated of the blocking in India. In gentle of the blocking, the location instantly noticed a drop of 80% in site visitors from the South Asian market, he informed .
Final month, VideoLAN and Web Freedom Basis used authorized means to get solutions and redressal surrounding the ban. India’s IT ministry by no means made public the order of the ban, but all telecom operators within the nation complied with it. In its authorized discover final month, VideoLAN sought a duplicate of the blocking order.
Indian telecom operators by no means disclosed why they have been blocking the VideoLAN web site, however some speculated that it may very well be due to a misinterpretation of a safety warning from earlier this 12 months.
Safety agency Symantec reported in April this 12 months that the hacker group Cicada, which has ties with the Chinese language authorities, was exploiting VLC Media Participant in addition to a number of different fashionable purposes to achieve distant entry to the sufferer’s computer systems. Kempf stated he was by no means contacted by any authorities company.
VLC, downloaded over 3.5 billion occasions worldwide, is an area media participant that doesn’t require web entry or connection to any specific service on-line for the overwhelming majority of its options. A block on its web site didn’t significantly affect the prevailing set up base of VLC.
However by blocking the web site, India was pushing its residents to “shady web sites which can be working hacked model of VLC. So they’re endangering their very own residents with this ban,” Kempf warned.
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