Like its neighbours in the Middle East, Oman is one of the countries that heavily censors Internet access, because of religious, cultural and politic views.
Regulated by the State controlled Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel), which is also the official Internet service and telephone Provider, Internet access ( available since 1997) is under strict surveillance to filter any critic of Islam, gay, lesbian, or pornographic content, or any anti-government propaganda.
The Sultanate of Oman government monitors private communications, including Internet chat rooms, blogs and discussion boards. In 2009 the administrators of a popular discussion board have been detained because an article about corruption in the country was posted in the forum.
Omantel also imposes to any individual or company that wants to open an Internet cafe to design the cafe so that the computer screens are always visible. No closed rooms are allowed and government owned proxies must be installed to log and monitor all activity.
Using an American filtering software, Omantel blocks pornographic websites, gay and lesbian sites, content relating to homosexual civil rights, dating websites, some Arabic forums, sites dealing with hacking and cracking and any content that critics Islam. Social media is also censored, some blogs have been blocked by the regulatory authorities, because they criticised the government and published leaked documents.
Even VoIP services such as Skype are also banned, making calls outside the country very expensive.
If you are an expat living in Oman, or you are going to travel there in the near future, the best way to use the Internet anonymously and access any website or use Skype to call home is to buy a VPN account.
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