The Times Online used the standard robots.txt protocol to block the Meltwater site. As a result, its customers will not be able to inform their clients when their company is mentioned in the Times.
The Times website, which is contemplating paywalls for its online content, blocked the NewsNow news monitor in January.
The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), owned by eight leading UK national news publishers, introduced two new licenses requiring agencies to pay between £5,000 and £10,000 per year to crawl online papers, and their clients to pay £58 a year to receive that intelligence.
While most companies complied with the NLA licenses, Meltwater approached the UK's Copyright Tribunal to challenge its fairness.
In a statement posted on its website, Meltwater said: "We find this move both surprising and disappointing as Meltwater has sought a ruling by the UK Copyright Tribunal to provide clarity on current UK copyright law.
"Yet, despite the fact that the Tribunal is still months away from reaching a decision, News International has chosen not to wait for a judgment, but to pursue its own course of action unilaterally."
