[LINK] Some Australian ISPs to voluntarily implement web filter

[Kim Holburn]

Say What?

Via slashdot:
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/06/24/voluntary-isp-filter-attracts-global-attention/

> Voluntary ISP filter attracts global attention
> 
> 
> update The continued support by several of Australia’s largest internet service providers for a voluntary version of the Federal Government’s mandatory ISP filtering scheme has attracted the ire of the world’s largest digital rights group, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
> 
> This week, Telstra and Optus reiterated that they were still planning to start filtering their customers’ traffic for a list of internet addresses provided by the Australian Communications and Media Authority which it has deemed to contain child pornography. The initiative is a stop-gap measure agreed to by ISPs and the Federal Government in mid-2010 while a review is carried out into the Refused Classification category of content which the wider mandatory filter will block.
> 
> Another major ISP, Primus, is also planning to implement the voluntary filtering scheme.
> 
> However, in an article posted overnight, global digital rights lobby group the Electronic Frontiers Foundation strongly objected to the voluntary filter, noting that the ISPs’ move came after “numerous failed attempts” to set up what the EFF described as “a centralised filtering plan”. The problems with the stop-gap plan, EFF director for international freedom of expression Jillian C. York wrote, were numerous.
> 
> 
> For starters, York said there was no transparency in the selection of the internet addresses to be blacklisted, and no accountability from the regulatory bodies creating the blacklists. “The “reputable international organizations” providing child abuse URLs have not been named, but may include the Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based organisation that in 2008 advised UK ISPs to block a Wikipedia page containing an album cover from the 1970s that they deemed might be illegal,” wrote York.

....

> Other problems were also manifest.
> 
> There appeared to be no appeals process embedded in the scheme, according to York, and the EFF director believed the introduction of such a filter set a precedent for the ISPs concerned to filter more sites in the future if the ACMA requested it. “If the ACMA were to make the decision that sites deemed “indecent” or politically controversial–for example–should be off-limits, would the ISPs comply?” she asked?


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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