A story about Saudi Arabia licensing websites owner is again being reported by AlArabiya.net. All blogs, forums, news sites, personal websites, electronic archives, chat rooms and online ads will require a license to be published to the web. The new regulations, approved by the Minister of Culture and Information come into effect in a month's time. As part of the application process web users must supply information about their web hosting which will presumably be used to take non-complying sites offline.
News reports this past year about Saudi Arabia licensing websites owner, sparked outrage among Saudi internet users on social media sites . At the time, Ministry of information domestic media supervisor Abdulrahman al-Hazzaa clarified that the new law will require on-line news sites to be licensed, but would only encourage bloggers and others to register. "We are not putting it in our mind to license them. There are so many we cannot control them," he said of the thousands of Saudi bloggers and online forum operators.
Anyone who writes on a blog, online newspaper, or similar form of electronic publishing will be required to meet the following obligations: they must be a Saudi national, over 20, hold a high school or higher qualification, be of good conduct and behavior, and hold an appropriate license given by the Ministry.
Editors must also receive special approval by the Ministry in addition to obtaining a license, while all license holders must publicly display their license information on their website. The license will last for three years, by which time a renewal will need to be sought. Exceptions to these rules can be employed at the discretion of the Minister.
Failure to comply with the new regulations can result in a number of penalties. The owner may be ordered to “correct” the content of the website, and pay a fine. Additionally, they may be required to pay compensation to an individual.
Saudi Arabia said that this does not constitute a breach of freedom of speech and said that it will act in a transparent manner in the conducting of the new laws, but the news is likely to upset a lot of bloggers and web users in the country. While some in western governments may applaud these actions as forward thinking, the rest of us just see this as wrong!
Saudis pass law to license website owners... again
Mon, 3rd January 2011, 22:40
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