GB is blacklisted by NC?

Here's a funny one...

I visited some North Carolina wineries last month and I have been doing some research on NC wine since, and I cannot access www.ncwinegrowers.com website because I get the message

403: Access Forbidden
Your country (GB) has been blacklisted.

Today I have tried looking at Raylen Vineyards website at http://www.raylenvineyards.com and, guess what, I get

403: Access Forbidden
Your country (GB) has been blacklisted.

I can access sites from other vineyards I visited in that area.

Why blacklist an entire country from looking at a commercial website??
They were happy enough to take my money when I bought their wines.

[Robin Garr]

Why blacklist an entire country from looking at a commercial website??

In that part of the world, people's memories are very long, almost as long as the Irish. They may still be mad about the Revolution and that War of 1812 business.

More likely, though, is a programming screwup by their website developers.

http://w3guy.com/fix-403-forbidden-error-encountered/

Problem is without beng able to access the website one can't get an email address to alert them

War of 1812? Wasn't that the one declared by the US who invaded Canada and burned the state Parliament and library?

I'd bet they have blacklisted all non-US traffic. Maybe share web designer/host (NC wine is a very small industry). They probably figure they only sell to US, so it saves some of the security hassle of dealing with hackers/spammers etc.

I'd bet they have blacklisted all non-US traffic. Maybe share web designer/host (NC wine is a very small industry). They probably figure they only sell to US, so it saves some of the security hassle of dealing with hackers/spammers etc.

I get the same message from France.

I looked for an email contact at Raylen, they have an email contact form. Probably what prompted international ban. I have some contact forms on website of my non-profit, periodically I get a bunch of 'bot entries like this:

Street: HtCMCXtNEOAvMu
Cross Street: ulgNNXZtyfiLdqdVKpv
Corner:
Building: slZgKDYfrRe
People Desc: ytTZYY <a href=\"http://ksynpgfzmcql.com/\">ksynpgfzmcql</a>, xitqnhajynoa, [link=http://zpjuooclytnd.com/]zpjuooclytnd[/link], http://fifblopbkmsi.com/
Needs: ytTZYY <a href=\"http://ksynpgfzmcql.com/\">ksynpgfzmcql</a>, xitqnhajynoa, [link=http://zpjuooclytnd.com/]zpjuooclytnd[/link], http://fifblopbkmsi.com/
Referrer: wtqygg vhjolc@xqyztr.com

Plus listing my address on website leads to a lot of spam.
I don't think blacklisting all non-US traffic is best answer, but assume that is what happened.

Dale

That sounds feasible, but it's a very blunt weapon to be used by a business dependent on tourism.

I have found an address for Raylen on another site and emailed them.