Telcos wary on voluntary filter

Despite three of the country’s major telcos announcing they would comply with the Government’s request to voluntarily block a list of URLs containing child pornography, some have said they won’t take part in any filtering scheme.

The protests come after communications minister Stephen Conroy announced last week he was shelving the mandatory filtering scheme for another year in order to complete a report on the Refused Classification rating within the classification system.

Instead, Conroy said he would urge ISPs to voluntarily block a list of child abuse URLs contained on an Australian Media and Communications Authority Blacklist.

Telstra, Optus and Primus – the three companies Conroy says account for over 70% of Australian internet users – said they would comply. But now, others say they will not.

Internode released a statement yesterday, in which general manager of regulatory and corporate affairs John Lindsay said the “blacklist has been thoroughly discredited”.

“It covers a tiny proportion of the content that would need to be blocked for it to be effective and has already been shown to contain URLs of legal content that Australians would expect to access.”

“Internode reminds parents that they will always need to use supervision and that they should activate the filtering tools provided with their computer operating system to protect their children online. There are also numerous tools sold by companies like Symantec and F-Secure that can provide fine-grained filtering that is age-appropriate.”

A number of ISPs have been directly outspoken against both the Government’s proposed mandatory filter, and the ACMA blacklist, which some say will slow internet speeds if implemented and could actually hurt innocent businesses caught in the crossfire.

Additionally, iiNet was also considering yesterday whether it would implement the Government’s suggestions. VHA, owner and operator of the Vodafone and Three brands, reportedly confirmed yesterday it would not perform voluntary filtering – but both iiNet and VHA did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

Meanwhile, the Government has continued to defend its stance on the mandatory internet filter, saying it is definitely on the cards but will only be introduced after the year-long review of the RC system is finished.

Senate leader Chris Evans said on Q&A yesterday the RC review was a response to public outcry regarding the broad scope of material that could be refused classification. He said the Government remains “absolutely committed” to the filter.

“We have to try and protect people from some of this terrible stuff that is available on the internet, and while people say that (the filter proposal) is not a perfect solution, we are not going to stop trying because it is not a perfect solution.”

“The trick is how do you do it, and what we have done is that we have sought to review the material that’s classified (as RC), because we’ve had a lot of feedback that it is catching material that it should not catch.”