AT&T offically blocks access to BGR, game on!
Alright AT&Tizzle, you won. You’ve blocked people from accessing BGR on your network (unless they are pretty high up), so we’re blocking you. That’s right. All the higher-ups will no longer be able to surf BGR. They’ll have to resort to viewing our scoops on the thousands of sites that pick them up. It was fun while it lasted, but we have a feeling you’ll miss us a lot more than we’ll miss you.
UPDATE: Looks like we’re frandz again. AT&T has removed the block on BGR! Thanks, tipsters!
Um.. it’s clear from the screenshot that the user was on an AT&T corporate network (”You have attempted to reach an internet website that is not business related…”), most likely within one of their offices. They built and own that network and they can do ANYTHING THEY WANT. It’s not a violation of anyone’s freedom of speech, because they’ve made no attempt to shut down BGR, and they’re just restricting their unfortunate employees from viewing it. Whomever thinks this is a violation of freedom of speech needs to go back and review that amendment. In order to attempt to violate freedom of speech on BGR, AT&T would have to make an attempt to get this site shut down, which to the best of our knowledge they are not currently doing. It would also be a different situation if they attempted to block BGR for the genpop who purchase their internet services (which is obviously not happening here).
Any employer you work for can lock down your computer, snoop what you’re doing, and block any sites they don’t want you to see, because you’re a user on their private network and they control it. Get a clue people.
As a security professional myself, we do this as a security best practice. Their content filtering system isn’t keying on the word “boy” because that has way too many legitimate meaning. Sites are generally blocked for one reason – they don’t have a real business use. This could certainly be debated here as I’m sure AT&T employees learn more about their upcoming offerings on BGR than they do internally but my guess is employees are spending too much time here and less time doing their damn job.
AT&T is pissed because their employees find out about new plans, phones, etc on BGR before their management can tell them. BGR is stealing their “Thunder”. Its called corporate management job justification. We see it every day! Ever heard of a company called ARAMARK, they pride themsleves on corp management job justification. Guess they just can’t get enough zeros behind that salary! Lol
Sad thing is it took a big corp meeting to make this happen. Shouldn’t you be meeting about fixing your slow ass network and all those iPhone issues?
AT&Shambles
AT&T thinks they’re God now because they have iPhone exclusivity… sounds like Apple Complex to me; Smug bitches. Is Job’s running that ship now??
taking the high road, as always. i enjoy this site and you bring a lot of useful information to the table, but lately biases have been glaring and ego has run wild. its time to turn bgr back into a news site.
gasp!
Who’s afraid of BGR?
Odd. I can still see it from my iphone. Isn’t that part of AT&T’s network?
Bill
Ohhhh… just inside AT&T… got’cha. Not nearly as bad as I thought when I first read it! Nope, not censorship. They can block whatever they want inside their company. Having internet at work is a priveledge and they can divy it out however they feel necessary.
Bill
I worked at Bellsouth/AT&T and they have always blocked your site ever since I can remember. For at least 2 years now. I guess the AT&T side of the house just started blocking it, but the Bellsouth side has always blocked it.
Folks:
ONCE AGAIN…
This is not censorship. This is not AT&T blocking access to BGR on your phones. (wow – sorry – but wow, back to computers 101 for you.)
This AT&T saying “We pay you to work. We don’t pay you to sit and browse the computer.” Or, like someone said earlier… “We don’t pay you to sit on a website and give out confidential, internal information in comments.”
I work for a company that once blocked ALL internet access unless it was company related or work related. No Google, No Yahoo, No personal email sites, no blogs, etc… If you worked on a program for a company, you had access to that company’s website and possibly competitors, and that’s all the access you had!”
Relax folks, relax. I’m sure there are other sites that are being blocked too – it’s not just BGR.
Wow. Just Wow.
I’ll tell you how to get back at them BG…. Find out the REAL available date for the Bold on AT&T and announce it before they do! That will show them, and please us.
ATT will miss BGR more than BGR miss ATT? give me a break and get off the high horse already. ATT can block whatever site they want and it has nothing to do with freedom of speech, so chill with all the US constitution BS. ANY company can block ANY site on their internal network. BGR is hardly even a pimple on ATT’s radar let alone the execs going to the trouble of specifically blocking this site. sheesh.
Fuck them!
By blocking AT&T, do u mean all iPhone users in the US won’t be checking out your site via 3G?
Sorry, seems like this is a loss for you, BGR. There must have been another way to respond, guys.
TareX you should find the answer to your question in more than 1/4 of the comments posted here.
damn it is blocked, i cant access BGR anymore on my iphone, but i can access the website when im connected to wifi
bgr –
i’m an att contractor and i’m accessing the site right now from my laptop, no problems! i’m in a research facility on the east coast. they did however block a few other sites (engadget, facebook, etc.)… the whole lot of us are super annoyed!
everyone
another thing is (from an insider) that the block is not for AT&T customers – its only if you’re accessing the internet thru AT&T’s network within their facilities (i.e. employees/contractors @ work or accessing via the corporate VPN etc.). The higherups get open access to wherever/whenever, but we get blocked and limited bandwidth internet.
at&t sucks.. chicken!
My company blocks a shitload of sites. Nothing to see here….move along.
Well BGR you arent blocked from all AT&T…Corporate might have blocked their employees access to the most informative and innovative sites that can prove to be a valid business tool on a daily basis for whatever reasons, but you get big love from us Authorized Retailers!! In fact our management requires that we get a daily dosage of BGR so that we are always on top of the game!!
I’m not surprised in the least. While I certainly respect BGR’s right to hunt for scoops, everyone’s got to realize that a LOT of what is on this site comes from employees posting internal corporate data. Which, at least in my company, is grounds for immediate termination. So yeah, I get why AT&T blocks access from their work computers. My company has never allowed access. Too make it more obvious, I work for T-Mo, and was shocked to see pics copied right out of Streamline (our employee resource site) and pasted right onto BGR regarding upcoming handsets. I kinda felt like tracking down whoever did it and getting them tossed onto the street. Agree with it or not, we sign agreements for just this sort of thing!
@Rob C
Thank you for being one of the only ones to get it…also, yes, this is just internally on AT&T networks, it does not affect regular customers.
why employees can’t use BJ, tilt, Q9h, or iPhone 3g to browse BGR???
doesn’t att claim “the fastest 3G network”???
at least att 3G doesn’t block BGR