Telstra and EscapeNet won’t participate in live trial
December 8, 2008 – 8:30 pmTelstra will not take part in the Government’s live ISP filtering pilot. According to Australian IT, Telstra says it is not in a position to participate in the Government’s internet filtering trial, primarily due to customer management issues. A spokesperson for Telstra said:
Telstra is separately evaluating technology that allows the blocking of defined blacklists and we will continue to work constructively with all stakeholders, including the Government, to help provide a safe internet environment for children.
EscapeNet, who are said to be against mandatory ISP filtering, also won’t be participating in the trial according to this post on Whirlpool.
On a side note, apart from Senator Conroy, where does Australian IT get their information that the ACMA blacklist of 1300 URLs ‘mainly contains web pages of child sexual abuse web sites’.
The trial will test against ACMA’s blacklist that currently contains 1300 URLs and may expand to approximately 10,000 links.
The list mainly contains web pages of child sexual abuse web sites.
EFA has an article on what the list also contains here, as does Irene Graham here. EFA writes:
Although we don’t know what’s on it, the ACMA does publish some statistics on what is blocked and why. In the ACMA’s last report, 781 overseas sites were added to the list. Of these, 3 were pedophilia related, and 410 fell under the heading “RC – Child – Depiction.” The rest, 368 sites, were mostly X-rated (251) and other legal material, including some prohibited for nudity, violence, crime or even “sexual fantasy”. Previous years showed similar statistics. We also know there are around 1300 URLs total on the blacklist at the moment.
2 Responses to “Telstra and EscapeNet won’t participate in live trial”
If this whole internet filtering thing goes through to the bitter end, I will be moving to New Zealand in order to keep my job. I work online as a “chat host”, and my US based manager has already told me that if Australia goes ahead with this I, and two colleagues, will unfortuantely have to be laid off. My company has a very strict policy of not hiring its hosts from countries employing any kind of mandatory internet filtering technology, due to the degradation they cause in traffic and internet connections. This already includes China, Vietnam and Cuba, and will also include Australia if the mandatory filtering becomes a reality. Nice club to be joining! Good one, Conroy. Believe me I will be complaining loudly, bitterly and very publicly over this if my job is threatened in any way.
By Daniel on Dec 8, 2008
@daniel
Wow…
just wow…
That realy sucks man.
Also, I am betting that the govt. will be wanting ISPs to use the technology that THEY choose, and not lets ISPs have choice of the tech they use, as that would give the ISP the ability to undermine any more draconian censorship they try to implement in the future. (yes I am being cynical, but given what the government is trying to do, I have every right to be this cynical)
By alphamone on Dec 9, 2008