On occasion, we are required by government orders, regulations, or other legal requirements to block access to specified websites. We review these orders carefully to ensure that they are valid government orders authorized by law. To be clear, these are requests to block access to a website, not requests to remove user content. We did not receive any requests from any government to remove user content during this reporting period.
Although we have not received blocking demands in the United States, we have received such demands in a handful of other countries. Generally, the blocking demands are issued because the websites are contrary to laws in those countries relating to online gambling, copyright, or child sexual abuse material. The government agencies that issue these blocking demands differ from country to country, and we comply with all such demands. While some countries have laws permitting the government to compel service providers in those countries to shut down or restrict communications services in those countries, Verizon has never received such an order. If we did receive such an order, we would determine its legal validity and try to limit any impact on our network and on our customers’ freedom of expression. The following figures relate to the number of websites that we were required to block access to during the relevant period of time. While we may be required to block access to such websites in the specified country for an ongoing period of time, we count such demands only for the period during which they were initially made, except in Colombia. In Colombia, we are now provided with a running list of websites that we are required to block, so we now report the total number of websites designated on that list at the end of each period. We were also required to block access to websites in India, but we are precluded by law from identifying the specific number of websites.
Country
1H 2018
2H 2018
1H 2019
2H 2019
1H 2020
2H 2020
1H 2021
Belgium
9
11
5
0
6
47
Colombia
2,368
2,611
2,590
2,464
2,714
2,642
9,857
Greece
1,064
684
3
23
1
335
Hungary
45
102
8
24
37
62
Italy
79
Poland
1,100
2,868
1,552
1,530
2,575
1,985
13,900
Portugal
Russian Federation
Switzerland
195
137
125
57