p2pnet - rss feed: Microsoft blocks YouTube urls
p2pnet news | Freedom:- “A number of readers are sending word that the blogosphere and Twittersphere are alight with reports of Microsoft’s new block on messages containing YouTube URLs,” said Slashdot on the weekend, going on >>>
Both MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger reportedly implement the block. One blogger sniffed the network to discover that such messages receive a NAK from Microsoft’s servers. Microsoft has been blocking messages by keyword, as an anti-phishing measure, for some time, but *.youtube.com would not seem to provoke much worry about phishing.
Instead, as B.E.T.A Daily speculates, “This block seems to be related to the recent launch of Messenger TV in 20 countries which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on messenger.”
Hard to get away with in an arena where you don’t enjoy a monopoly.
But it was all a big mistake, promise Bill and the Boyz.
“As some of you noticed, we had a problem from Friday night to Saturday morning where our Messenger service was incorrectly blocking some legitimate IP addresses,” admits Microsoft spokesman Dharmesh (right), blogging >>>
“There have been some pretty outlandish speculations on what happened so I’d like to give you some facts about our process for trying to block unsafe URLs and about what happened Friday night:
There are a number of factors that can be used to determine whether a URL is potentially harmful: number of times a URL is sent, the frequency of the URL being sent, the number of accounts the URL is sent from, manually checking the URL, comparing with other “block lists”, etc.
When a URL is deemed harmful, a block can be instated for a specific URL (i.e. www.<domain>.com/<page>) or an entire domain (i.e. *.<domain>.com)
This entire process for Messenger is managed by a 3rd party that is a Microsoft partner
On Friday, Microsoft did not request to block any of the URLs that were accidentally blocked
The blocks were made by our partner as a result of their process to block harmful URLs
Could it happen again?
Dharmesh says Microsoft still hasn’t figured out why the blocks happened.
“We are still investigating the specific reason our partner made these incorrect blocks and we will work with them to improve their process for detecting harmful URLs while not blocking safe ones,” he says.
Stay tuned.
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Slashdot - Microsoft IM Blocking YouTube Links, May 10, 2008
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May 13th, 2008 at 9:49 am
They block other links as well not only youtube link on MSN. I might even go as far as they block almost any links.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Programs have the notorious effect of doing unexpected things, which is why you test run the program over and over during the debugging process.
Things still get through though. This one is interesting.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:41 am
not news.. every URL beginning with http:// is blocked on MSN.. simply use a www.something.com/blahblah url WITHOUT http:// and you’ll be fine. On my end, every links works (including youtube)
May 16th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Recently S Balmer apparently says he wants to fn kill Google, MS open up their own video sharing site which is obviously in direct competition with Youtube (google) and then we have MS blocking Youtube links. Coincidence? maybe or maybe not.
Stopped using MS software long ago due to their controlling ways.