Frankie Anetzberger
Contributing Writer
In last week’s edition of The Student, my article, “Barstool Getting Blacked Out?” was published and printed with a few major inaccuracies. In light of the distress among students, it was premature on my part as the author to indicate that the school was directly involved with the “Forbidden” message received when attempting to access Ticketmaster.
The school’s Information Technology department was not involved in any way with the blocking of the website. Trish Dalessio, Director of the Technology Solutions Center, and all of Information Technology work under the philosophy of respect and support for our students.
After talking to Springfield College officials, the school stated that Information Technology would not block any Internet site without contacting the campus community beforehand.
The only exception would be if the site was causing malicious damage to the Springfield College network.
The specific line from last week’s article that was incorrect came when I wrote: “…it appears Springfield College had blocked Ticketmaster.com in an effort to halt ticket purchases.” Dalessio indicated to me that it was actually Ticketmaster.com who had blocked the school’s access to the site.
In her phone conversation with a Ticketmaster representative, it was explained that the site has the right to block any IP address who tries accessing the site more than 25 times per hour. That representative also noted that the site was first blocked on Wednesday, Dec. 5 and remained blocked until Dec. 6.
I apologize for the inaccuracies and the trouble the IT department endured during this time.