Softlayer / Blocking Cuba IP's ?

[nanog at ics-il.net (Mike Hammett)]

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2016/02/11/ibm-softlayer-blocks-services-iran-us-lifts-sanctions/ 

This is likely the same situation. 




----- 
Mike Hammett 
Intelligent Computing Solutions 
http://www.ics-il.com 

Midwest-IX 
http://www.midwest-ix.com 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Faisal Imtiaz" <faisal at snappytelecom.net> 
To: "nanog list" <nanog at nanog.org> 
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2016 2:27:59 PM 
Subject: Softlayer / Blocking Cuba IP's ? 


Hello All, 

This is a shout out to Softlayer Network Admin / Policy folks... 

We just went thru a painful process to find out that Softlayer has recently decided to block Cuba IP Address Space....(on their cloud services). 

I am not a politician, nor any kind of a policy expert, However I have a questions for the SoftLayer folks... 

On What basis, legal requirement, logic, have they taken on the responsibility to implement such a Block ? 

Considering the fact that such a block was just put in place about a week ago ? 
Last time I checked, blocking any part of the world is not part of any legal requirements on any Global Service Provider ? other than a 'company policy' ? 

Also, the Last time I checked the US Cuba relations are getting better not worse! 

Would love to know what was the reasoning behind such action ! 

Thank you. 

Faisal Imtiaz 
Snappy Internet & Telecom