[OT] United Kingdom Internet Restrictions - You Are Doing It Wrong!

I though the worst case scenario about "politicians and internet relationship" was Italy, where politicians average age is 65 and internet is still considered an "uncontrolled porn and communists place" and nothing else ... but I was wrong.

Today I bought an USB pen for mobile broadband to have access to the net with a pay as you go solution, until I will solve my flat+internet problems.

It has been extremely simple: You go to the shop, you buy the pen, you top up what you want, you surf the web ... fair enough, the installation under Windows XP SP3 was quick and simple ( anyway, I wonder when this companies will realize that main operating systems are 3, not just PC and Mac ... I cannot use the the software under my Ubuntu partition ... annoying! )

The first step, after installation, has been go to edit a post I published yesterday evening and with extreme surprise I found a bar on the top of the blogger platform which showed me the name of the company, rather than the normal blogger bar.

Lock Content, Under 18 "Feature"


My reactions in order:

  1. wait a minute, where the hell is the blogger bar?!

  2. don't tell me they have a sort of filter ...

  3. ... o my God, they do! Don't tell me I cannot edit my blog (manual entry in the url field ...)

  4. Oh My God! Don't tell me they are asking me a credit card to demonstrate I am older than 17!

  5. OH MY GOD! Don't tell me every under 18 can read social networks but they cannot create one!

  6. OH MY GOD!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!!!?!??!??!?!



After a lovely 10 minutes conversation with the customers service, I realize that this filter is absolutely ridiculous and reasons are simply these:

  • hellooooo!!! I bought this pen drive and nobody told me something like that, also nobody asked me my age when I bought this pen ... easy sell and complex usage? well done!

  • Hellooooo!!! under 18 can read social networks, see pictures, videos, everything else, but they cannot use just the top bar of the blogger service?

  • HELLOOOOO!!! Under 18 people are excluded from internet because you decided that these guys cannot open a blog and write about whatever they want, including possible genius that could simply make this world better than now?


"It Does Not Matter, As Long As We Control You"

What I felt after this little inconvenient not described in any of the pen papers is simply that internet is not free at all. Somebody still think that internet usage is like alcohol, prohibited because it could cause diseases???
The European population is old so this 18 lock is just to control even more the system and I am sorry, but in my opinion it is simply an extremely silly control which does NOT prevent anything and just annoy 80% of customers ... full credit card details ... to surf the web? Oh My God!

P.S. They had to apologies for the interview ... oh, now that's left me feel better!

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