Briefly: Fran Foo from Australian IT reports that the starting date for the Government’s live mandatory ISP filtering trial is imminent and that 16 ISPs are in the final round of the selection process. She writes:
One issue understood to be stalling the process is that service providers have been negotiating for extra funding.
A mere $300,000 has been allocated to fund the live trials although $44.2 million out of the Government’s $125.8 million cyber-safety plan has been allocated to filtering.
However, Foo’s assertion that ‘Communications Minister Stephen Conroy hopes to introduce two forms of content filtering: a mandatory scheme based on a blacklist of illegal web pages, and an optional “clean feed” of links that would automatically block certain types of content, such as adult material’ is incorrect. The mandatory scheme is not based on illegal web pages, but rather prohibited content — content that is RC, X18+, R18+ and MA15+.
3 comments
Bob Bain says:
Jan 28, 2009
Funding of $300,000 for a six month live trial involving between 2 to 16 ISPs is little more than a joke.
It’s necessary to spend meaningful money to obtain meaningful results.
A budget starting around $5 million would be more realistic but then woefully lacking if meaningful results are to be obtained.
$300,000 sends the message “we don’t take these trials very seriously”.
No wonder the ISPs (according to the article) are seeking additional funding.
Simon says:
Jan 28, 2009
Of course they don’t take the trials seriously. They’re just a formality – they’re going to whack them into place regardless of what the trials tell them. Conroy’s actively refused to listen to sense from anyone until now, he’s not about to start.
Glenn Petrie says:
Jan 28, 2009
iPrimus is my current ISP, and they were more than happy to do their master’s bidding. I feel sorry for those iPrimus users who have sent their ISP a letter, requesting them not to participate in the trails. If the mandatory ISP-based filtering ever gets voted down but iPrimus slaps that onto all its users, I will be switching to another ISP.