Reports coming in from France told the same story – no Pirate Bay and no helpful explanation from Orange, despite many complaints. Many believed that Orange had taken the decision to block the Swedish tracker and they began voicing displeasure.

TorrentFreak picked up the story on Monday, contacting Orange PR for an explanation. After a reminder on Tuesday, we published the response from Orange who said: “Our understanding is that Orange doesn’t block access to any sites other than those identified by the Internet Watch Foundation, that relate to illegal child abuse imagery. However, we’re looking into this and will update you again as soon as we can.”

File-sharers live in uncertain times and when organizations such as the IFPI actively take steps to force ISPs to censor the Internet, it’s little wonder that people come to the conclusions they do. So we asked Orange customers to tell us directly if they could access The Pirate Bay or not. An overwhelming majority said they couldn’t, but a few explained that they could, which cast some doubt on the ISP-wide block theory. However, with nothing official coming back from Orange, lingering suspicions remained.

Finally today, an Orange spokesperson responded officially, thanking TorrentFreak for bringing the matter to their attention and offering the following message:

We can confirm that we have not actively stopped customers accessing the web sites reportedly affected. However, following investigation by our network partners, a small section of our Internet traffic was rerouted by one of them which has now restored access to the sites concerned.

As has always been the case, it is Orange UK’s policy to not block customer access to websites, other than to those containing images of child abuse as identified by the IWF.

So there it is in black and white – Orange customers can officially access The Pirate Bay again. As the proof of the pudding is in the eating, we encourage feedback in the comments – are you an Orange customer and has the site returned for you?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

No stranger to criticism, in March 2007 UK consumer protection TV show ‘Watchdog’ held a survey which deemed Orange to be the worst ISP in the UK, with the most unreliable broadband service. The survey revealed that the company also had the greatest number of dissatisfied customers and, if recent reports prove correct, Orange are about to start accumulating a few more.

Last Friday, reports started coming in from UK Orange Broadband users, all of them complaining that they can no longer access The Pirate Bay. Initially it seemed that the difficulties could be related to technical issues but as the days have passed, the situation hasn’t changed. Worryingly, the situation is mirrored by Orange customers in France who are also complaining the ‘bay is off-limits.

Some Orange customers with this problem remembered that when The Pirate Bay was blocked in Italy, a new domain was setup (labaia.org) to sidestep the restrictions, but unfortunately this domain is inaccessible to them too. However, many are finding that if they use a proxy site, such as BlockedSiteAccess.com or Megaproxy, The Pirate Bay reappears.

Customers have been complaining to Orange themselves, who haven’t given any indication of how to successfully solve the problem, while neither confirming nor denying claims of a block. Yesterday, TorrentFreak contacted Orange’s PR company for comment and, after a reminder today, received this response:

Our understanding is that Orange doesn’t block access to any sites other than those identified by the Internet Watch Foundation, that relate to illegal child abuse imagery. However, we’re looking into this and will update you again as soon as we can.

Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak that they are aware of the problem and are looking into it.

We will update this post as soon as Orange respond definitively, but in the meantime, if you are an Orange customer we would like to hear of your experiences in the comment section.

Update 26/11/08: It’s now 48 hours since we first asked Orange about this problem (and 6 days since it started receiving complaints direct from its subscribers) and we have heard nothing from them, other than the quote above. Sorry folks, but whatever the reason for the problem (block/DNS/other technical issue) it seems Orange doesn’t want to respond to customer complaints.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.