The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) began a large-scale operation to block thousands of domains in Brazil. In an interview with the CNN 360° program on Tuesday (15), the president of Anatel, Carlos Baigorri, shared details of this action.
Baigorri explained that the blocking of betting platforms began last Friday (11), after the Prizes and Betting Secretariat of the Ministry of Treasury sent Anatel a list of sites not authorized to operate in the country.
“As soon as we received this list, we began to notify the almost 20 thousand telecommunications companies in Brazil that have a license from Anatel to provide internet access”, he detailed.
However, it is worth noting that some of these domains were affiliate sites and even media sites. The news portal, Yogonet, was unduly taken offline at the start of operations. The website’s activities were resumed this Monday (14) after contacts with the Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) and Anatel itself.
President of Anatel claims that the work is much greater than in blocking X
The president of Anatel highlighted that the scale of this operation is significantly greater than the recent blocking of platform X (formerly Twitter) in Brazil. “In the case of platform X, we deal with a single website, a single domain. Now, we are dealing with around 2,040 betting sites”, compared Baigorri.
The complexity of the operation goes beyond the number of sites. Baigorri warned that it is common for illegal companies to look for ways to circumvent the blockade.
“Part of this ongoing work is to monitor these attempts to game the system, identify how they occur and take the necessary measures to ensure the blockade is effective,” he said.
Baigorri emphasized that this will be an ongoing effort, carried out in close collaboration with the Ministry of Treasury. “It is a constant process of identifying and blocking irregular domains, coordinated between the Ministry of Treasury and Anatel”, he explained.
He also clarified that Anatel does not manage the domains. The agency only receives the list from the Ministry of Finance and instructs telecommunications companies to block it.
Therefore, monitoring and updating the list of irregular websites is the responsibility of the Ministry of Treasury. Meanwhile, Anatel takes care of the technical execution of the blockade.
