Websites blocked in Belgium

The precise number of websites blocked in Belgium is unknown. Blocking may vary from one Internet Service Provider (ISP) to another with some sites blocked by some ISPs and not by others.

Main article: Internet censorship in Belgium

Site blocks in Belgium are at this moment based on DNS Hijacking which has the possibilities of circumventing using proxies or DNS over HTTPS.

Verification

There is no official complete register of blocked sites. Blocked content includes:

• Court orders (mainly for copyright issues)
• Unilateral blocking (some websites have been reported as being blocked without any known court order on the sole initiative of certain ISPs)
• Gambling regulations (Belgian gambling laws requires a Gambling business to have a local physical gambling point and proper license in order to provide online gambling)[1]

The only reported technique used by Belgian ISPs to block such websites is DNS Hijacking where requests toward the blocked websites would be redirected to a government owned web page: the "StopPage".[2]

Court-ordered blocked websites

These are the sites explicitly listed and blocked by court cases in Belgium.

Site name	Domain or URL	Type of site	Reason	ISPs in Court Case	Blocked By[3]	Start date	Resolution date
The Pirate Bay	thepiratebay.se thepiratebay.org thepiratebay.net thepiratebay.com thepiratebay.nu piratebay.org piratebay.net piratebay.se piratebay.no jimkeyser.se ripthepiratebay.com	Torrent Indexer	Copyright[4]	Proximus Telenet	Proximus Telenet Numericable[5][note 1] Mobistar[5][note 1] Voo	November 2011[4][6][7][8]

Notes

1. It is important to note that despite the fact that only two ISPs were actually concerned in this court order, many other ISPs have implemented the same blocking without any specific court order. It is not fully known which ISPs decided to enforce this ruling or not.

Unilaterally blocked websites

These are the sites blocked by some ISPs in Belgium without any known related court-order. It is believed that these blockings are the result of pressure by the Belgian Anti-piracy Federation (BAF) who threatened ISPs with heavy legal fees should they not comply with their request.[9][10][11][12] The list of ISPs below is probably incomplete as each ISP can decide individually on the matter.

Case name	Domain or URL	Type of site	Reason	Blocked by[3]	Start date	Resolution date
The Pirate Bay	thepiratebay.se depiraatbaai.be	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Numericable Telenet Voo	December 2011[13]
IsoHunt	isohunt.com	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Numericable Telenet Voo	unknown	Site moved to new domain in October 2013[14]
KickAssTorrents	kat.ph kickass.to	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Numericable Telenet Voo	August 2013[5]
BitSnoop	bitsnoop.com	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Telenet Voo	August 2013[5]
ExtraTorrent	extratorrent.cc	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Telenet Voo	August 2013[5]
h33t	h33t.com	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Numericable Telenet Voo	August 2013[5]	Site moved to new domain in December 2013[15]
monova	monova.org	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Telenet Voo	unknown
TorrentReactor	torrentreactor.net	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Numericable Telenet Voo	unknown
TorrentHound	torrenthound.com	Torrent Indexer	Copyright	Proximus Mobistar Telenet Voo	unknown
Yify Subtitles	yifysubtitles.com	Movie Subtitles	Copyright	Proximus Telenet	February 2016
InterPlanetary FileSystem	ipfs.io	Blockchain backed file sharing	Copyright ?	Telenet	May 2020 (or earlier)

Gambling regulations blocked websites

The list of blocked gambling websites is the only official publicly available and maintained blocklist in Belgium. The list is available on the official Belgian Gaming Commission website.[16]

References

1. "10 JANVIER 2010. - Loi portant modification de la législation relative aux jeux de hasard" [10 January 2010. - Bill to amend the law regarding games of chance]. LOI - WET. 1 February 2010. Archived from the original on 2014-01-17. Retrieved 2014-01-16.
2. Groen, Karen (30 November 2011). "Belgian Court of Appeal prefers DNS blocking over IP blocking". Future of Copyright. Amsterdam: Future of Copyright. Archived from the original on 5 April 2012.
3. DNS Lookups on ISP DNS Servers
4. "Het hof van beroep, zitting houdend te ANTWERPEN, EERSTE KAMER, recht doende in burgerlijke zaken, heeft volgend arrest gewezen: inzake: 2010/AR/2541, VZW BELGIAN ANTI-PIRACY FEDERATION, afgekort VZW BAF, met zetel gevestigd te 1200 Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, Almapleine 3 bus 10 en ingeschreven in de kruispuntbank der ondernemingen onder der nr. 0427.907.283" [The Court of Appeal, sitting in ANTWERP, FIRST CHAMBER, acting in civil cases, has issued the following judgment: regarding 2010/AR/2541, VZW BELGIAN ANTI-PIRACY FEDERATION, abbreviated as VZW BAF, with registered office at 1200 Sint- Lambrechts-Woluwe, Almapleine 3 bus 10 and registered at the companies crossroads bank under no. 0427.907.283] (PDF) (in Dutch). Antwerp: Hof van beroep, eerste kamer (Court of Appeal, First Chamber). 4 October 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
5. Van der Sar, Ernesto (28 August 2013). "Belgian ISPs Quietly Expand Torrent Site Blockade". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 23 January 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
6. "Belgian ISP ordered to block The Pirate Bay; Telecomix and TPB Offer Workarounds". Slashdot. SlashdotMedia. 4 October 2011. Archived from the original on 19 January 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
7. Baker, Jennifer (6 October 2011). "Pirate Bay encourages filesharers to dodge Belgium block". Techworld. IDG UK. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
8. Ausloos, Jef (7 December 2011). "Belgian ISPs vs Internet Freedom". EFF: Electronic Frontier Foundation. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Archived from the original on 21 January 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
9. Van Mechelen, Christophe (17 November 2011), BAF Letter to ISPs (PDF) (in French), Brussels, Belgium: Belgian Anti-piracy Federation, archived (PDF) from the original on 26 January 2012, retrieved 16 January 2014
10. Van Mechelen, Christophe (17 November 2011). "BAF Letter to ISPs" (PDF) (in Dutch). Brussels, Belgium: Belgian Anti-piracy Federation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 January 2012. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
11. "La BAF fait chanter les fournisseurs d'accès pour étendre la censure internet" [The BAF blackmails ISPs to extend internet censorship]. NURPA (in French). Brussels: Net Users' Rights Protection Association. 5 December 2011. Archived from the original on 23 February 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
12. Lausson, Julien (6 December 2011). "Les FAI belges invités à bloquer The Pirate Bay pour éviter les frais de justice" [Belgian ISPs invited to block The Pirate Bay to avoid court costs] (in French). Numerama. Archived from the original on 21 January 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
13. "Les fournisseurs d'accès à Internet étendent la censure, sans base légale" [ISPs extend censure, without legal basis]. NURPA (in French). Net Users' Rights Protection Association. 19 December 2011. Archived from the original on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
14. Gibbs, Samuel (30 October 2013). "Isohunt BitTorrent search engine back online". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited.
15. Maxwell, Andy (10 December 2013). "H33T Back Online After Several Months Downtime". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
16. "Liste noire: Liste des sites de jeux interdits" [Blacklist: List of prohibited gaming sites]. SPF JUSTICE: Commission des jeux de hasard (in French). Commission des jeux de Hasard. Archived from the original on 2014-02-01. Retrieved 2014-01-16.

External links

• Gaming Commission
• the StopPage
• anti-piracy.be