[LINK] Rudd online porn-free plan questioned

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Rudd online porn-free plan questioned
Sue Dunlevy
January 02, 2008
Australian IT
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22997228-15306,00.html

A Rudd Government plan to censor internet pornography and violence could 
undermine another of its election promises - to speed up our internet 
access.

Kevin Rudd promised before the election to force internet service 
providers to supply a clean feed to households and schools free of 
"inappropriate" material
The Internet Industry Association has warned the downside of censoring 
access could be a reduction in the speed of access to websites.

Mr Rudd promised before the election to force internet service providers 
to supply a clean feed to households and schools free of "inappropriate" 
material.

Australians who want uncensored access to the web will have to contact 
their provider and opt out of the service.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the clean feed will be 
achieved by getting the Communications and Media Authority to prepare a 
blacklist of unsuitable sites.

Internet Industry Association spokesman Peter Coroneos said the industry 
is working closely with the Government on the policy to be trialled 
later this year.

But he warned it could never be completely successful in blocking access 
to all pornographic sites, just the ones on the blacklist.

If new sites were launched that were not included on the blacklist the 
clean feed would not restrict access to them, he said. "You've got to be 
aware of the fallibility of the approach," he warned.

There were millions of pornographic websites and if all of them were 
included in the blacklist "there is a potential for slow downs in access 
to occur", he said.

"The more sites you attempt to block the greater the effect on the 
network performance and speed," he said.

This is because every time you type a request into your search engine it 
will have to be checked against all the sites on the blacklist, he said.

In Britain where a clean feed policy is being pursued, only between 200 
and 1000 child pornography sites have been included on a blacklist.

But if Australia insisted on including millions of general pornography 
sites and others that include violence it could undermine internet 
users' speed of access to websites, Mr Coroneos said.

A 2005 pilot study carried out by the former Howard government found a 
clean feed approach could cut down speed of accessing the internet by 
between 18 to 78 per cent depending on what was being blocked.

The Rudd Government campaigned on a platform promising to speed up 
Australians' access to the worlwide web by rolling out broadband around 
the country.

Mr Coroneos said any clean feed policy would have to be carefully balanced.

He said households that really wanted to block out pornographic material 
would be better off investing in a home based filter system.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au