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Endangered Countries On The Internet

Posted by timothy on from the externalities dept.

Vande writes "Balkanalysis.com has an article about Macedonia being driven towards internet extinction as a result of some blacklists, which also include Bulgaria and Romania. Namely, this poorly written quote from the 'export bureau' (non-gov org) states the reason for being blacklisted: 'Pay close attention to shipping or contact addresses located in countries with a high reported incidence of online fraud and many e-commerce web sites have found a high incidents of on-line fraud as well, such as Africa, Nigeria, Macedonia, Colombia, etc..' They must have lost the stats on fraud from Russia, Israel and the USA itself, because Macedonia's negligible internet population cannot possibly account for that much trouble. Cutting off an entire country only hurts the legitimate users. And I thought all this time I was surfing the 'World Wide' Web :/"

3 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. I run an online store by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just this morning we cancelled 4 orders by the same person from Nigeria. UK billing address, Gambian delivery address, Nigeria IP address.

    We lose more money to the US than Nigeria, but then the honest orders more than outweigh those. I can't recall a single order from Nigeria/Romania where the credit card was 100% clean.

    If these countries want to get a positive reputation then they should place more real orders so that the clean orders outweight the fraudulent ones.

    Another thing that is noticable, Indians in the UK have a very high level of fraud, whereas Indians, in India have a very low level of fraud.

    I reckon its because they are displaced from their home country and don't feel any need to be honest.

  2. As a Macedonian... by Ivan+Todoroski · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think I've noticed any of this blocking described in the article during my everyday surfing, and I do surf the web a lot. Can't say this really worries me.

    While I do agree that blocking ANY country (including the mentioned Russia, Israel, etc.) based on actions of a few individuals is utterly wrong, I think the article is a bit too alarmist and paranoid, especially the bit about this being the result of some kind of political conspiracy.

    So a few sites blocked Macedonian IPs, big deal. Various IP blocks get blocked all the time for various (sometimes wrong) reasons, and things usually work out when enough legitimate users complain. A tempest in a teapot...

  3. Re:Eastern Europe too.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I worked at a top-50 software online retailer. When our "chargeback rate" went about 1%, our bank (wells fargo) gave a list of advice on what to do.

    One of the pieces of advice included blocking countries. If you tried to buy from eastern europe on our site, you'd get a "we're havng problems processing your transaction, please call customer support" error message. If the person called, we'd assume they were legit and white-list them.

    Sucked for them, though, because of the long-distance call.