Is blocking users going too far

Innocents blocked

[Visit Thailand]

A major site (based in Thailand but hosted I don't know) I today discovered is blocking me from accessing it because I do not have the proper referall from my browser probably caused by NIS 2003.

Do you think this whole blocking issue is going a little far?

[Dreamquick]

Is it going a little bit too far? Depends on your viewpoint...

With my "consumer" hat on if a site wants to block me then that's fine - I'll either go to their competitors or I'll have to repent and disable the offending piece of software.

With my "developer" hat on, I'd say that anyone who feels the need to mess with their browser variables under the false guise of "privacy" deserves all they get.

However whenever I block a request (quite a frequent thing) I'm *very clear* about why I've reacted like this so they can fix it if they really want access.

With my "businessman" hat on I'd say assess your target audience - if lots of them are using this type of technology then you might have a problem, otherwise it's time to judge whether they currently represent a large enough group to justify applying fixes & associated development costs.

- Tony

[rcjordan]

>With my "businessman" hat on I'd say

And with my businessman's hat on, I'd say blocking anybody/bot that is outside the market area for your product or service is good management of resources.

[jomaxx]

Leaving that argument aside, I'm seeing a fair number of legitimate surfers whose browsers don't provide the referring page, so using it as a basis on which to prohibit visitors does seem like a poor choice to me.

You never know when one of those banned users might be a Yahoo reviewer, or a writer for Wired who might have profiled your site, or a potential advertiser, or even a venture capitalist with too much of his money in cash.

[chiyo]

seems fair to me. Site owners have the ability (and i would say its not unethical) to block users who they think will not buy their stuff or help their site objectives, (though these stategies do have their down sides). IP blocking, paid or not registration, its all the same.

Publishing a site does not mean you sign an agreement to make it available to everyone.

All in all its a business decision.

If it bothers me, i would probably visit from a diff browser or an anonymiser to see if there is any reason why they are blocking people like me.

[mcavic]

Could you send me the url? I'd like to take a look.

Are you saying that it blocks you because you don't have any referrer string? That means that if anyone bookmarks a page on the site, then tries to come back to it, there won't be a referrer, so it'll block that request?