Hoping to ease concerns mobile service providers have about mandatory ISP filtering, a spokesperson for Senator Conroy said the Government does not anticipate prescribing what technologies can and can’t be used to filter Internet access, ‘rather it is anticipated that a minimum level will be set and ISPs required to meet it.‘
Australian IT writes:
…Some mobile providers say they are already able to offer clean feeds over mobile broadband services and they hope the Government’s filtering policy will accommodate them.
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the Government did not expect to vet service providers’ filtering technology.
“These are matters that will be considered in the pilot trial,” the spokesman said.
“It is not anticipated that the Government will prescribe what technologies can and can’t be used, rather it is anticipated that a minimum level will be set and ISPs required to meet it.”
The big question is do these comments from Conroy’s office apply to all ISPs or only to mobile internet providers?
I get the feeling a ‘minimum level’ would mean being able to filter a black list supplied by the ACMA. Any analysis based filtering methods would be inconsistent and hard to measure (unless simply providing an analysis based filter is the minimum standard, irregardless of results).
And I can’t speak for all mobile Internet providers in Australia, but Three’s clean feed is not a filtered service, it’s a walled garden. Fixed-line ISPs can already offer a similar service or a filtered service (and some do), but it’s probably safe to say most don’t because filtering is ineffective and any customer demand for it has already been met by competitors.
