Orkut

At one time, Orkut allowed members of many UAE professional and social groups to stay in touch. I noted some high schools that had thousands of students, faculty, and alumni using Orkut.

However, a very few of the Orkut pages offered dates (and certain financial transactions that are euphemistically called 'dates').

The TRA might have blocked the offending pages, but this would have sent the wrong signal.

Knowing that the TRA was going to do the right thing, a local newspaper wrote a scathing editorial saying that failing to block a website that had a single offensive page is totally wrong. The TRA must block such sites completely, in order to demonstrate that they do not tolerate any such pages, or any site that ever allows even one such page to inadvertently get posted.

And that newspaper can take full credit now that the TRA has blocked all of Orkut.

Unlike Canute, who stood at ebb tide and ordered the tide not to come in, the newspaper had the good sense to stand at high tide and order the tide to go out.

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I should note that I use a security filter on my computer when surfing, and it also blocked Orkut, even before the TRA did, because Orkut tracks all the groups one views, and may make that information available to people whom one would prefer not know one's on line activities.