Web Safe incorrectly blocking our website

[mmmoussa]

I work at Tarteel, a mobile app company that makes an app for reading and reciting the Quran. None of our app or website content fits any of the categories that web safe is protecting against. 1 month ago we discovered through complaints from some UK users that Web Safe was blocking our infrastructure domain tarteel.io, making our app unusable for anyone trying to use our app on their broadband with web safe turned on. I made a post in this forum and a forum team member said it should be fixed. We followed up with one user who said it seemed to be working fine now.

Fast forward one month, we are again receiving complaints from individuals in the UK using web safe on their broadband that our app is not working for them, and have confirmed that whitelisting our domain fixes the issue for them. We once again request that our domains tarteel.io and tarteel.ai, as well as any of their subdomains, be removed immediately from the Web Safe block list.

My original forum post seems to have been deleted (but not by me): https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Web-Safe-incorrectly-blocking-our-website/m-p/...

Someone else experiencing the same problem copied my original post and used it as a template for theirs though: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Security-matters/Web-Safe-incorrectly-blocking-our-website/m-p/... 

[Gareth_L]

HI mmmoussa

Thanks for your post. 

Sorry to hear some customers are not able to view this 

You can report your website by emailing websafefeedback@​virginmedia.co.uk so we can investigate 

Also each customer would need to allow this in there own personal websafe features 

Gareth_L

[mmmoussa]

It's completely unacceptable and unreasonable that we have to educate every single one of our customers using Web Safe that it is Virgin Media's fault that our product is not working for them. This issue should be resolved by Virgin Media such that Web Safe no longer illegitimately blocks our domain. Please escalate this within Virgin Media to someone that can deliver that outcome.

[用心棒 · Accepted solution]

@mmmoussa,

In my reply to that original post I stated there no longer appears to be a block because the issue could not be reproduced with Web Safe's default configuration. With your repeat post I looked further into the issue, i.e. non-default settings, and found that Child Safe's Online Dating category is responsible for the block on tarteel.io; there is no block on tarteel.ai.

Do consider raising the issue again via websafefeedback@​virginmedia.co.uk with the above findings and encourage your users experiencing the issue to raise it via the Child Safe link (highlighted below) when access tarteel.io from a web browser:

By the way, I would discourage asking your users to make changes in Web Safe due to ongoing issues with loss of settings, for example Websafe settings disappeared (again) - Virgin Media Community - 4976275, Child safe changed - Virgin Media Community - 4977344, and I am trying to block certain sites but keep gettin... - Virgin Media Community - 4976751

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[Kain_W]

I can appreciate your frustration here mmmoussa,

Have you been able to raise this with the email above?

Thanks,

[mmmoussa]

Hi @Kain_W, I emailed them before @用心棒 provided their reply with the helpful context. I got a response to my email claiming that both of our domains are not being blocked by any filter, are fully accessible, and have not been mis-categorized, which is obviously incorrect. I have followed up sharing the additional context that @用心棒 provided but have not received another reply yet. If you have any ability to escalate this issue and make sure that the issue gets fixed correctly it would be appreciated.

[findshorty]

Same issue for me, although my client's site is blocked because WebSafe suspect its either fraudulent or unsafe.

Completely absurd.

I look forward to my email from the websafe team saying everything is hunky dory and nothing is blocked...

[Tudor]

“Completely absurd.” No it’s not, from VM perspective it’s better to be safe than sorry.

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us @Incommunicado.

Have you had any further updates from the team about this since you last posted?

Regards,

Steven_L

[findshorty]

"Better to be safe than sorry"

That's simply nonsense.

If your product doesn't work, and produces a large number of blatant false positives, which prevents legitimate businesses doing actual business with VM customers, then it's better to fix the bloody thing, or at least quickly address each false positive as it comes in.

Why is this only an issue with WebSafe? Why don't I see other ISPs blocking legitimate, safe websites?

All I've seen is deflection and denial on the part of VM.