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Telecommunications ALP Net filtering plan condemned
Telecommunications ALP Net filtering plan condemned | ALP Net filtering plan condemned |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Tuesday, 21 March 2006 | |
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Page 2 of 2 He promised that a Labor Government would "work with industry to ensure this service is provided at no extra cost to the householder...[ensuring] that the costs of providing a clean feed are shared fairly and competition is not adversely affected, particularly for small providers." Communications minister, Helen Coonan, however claimed that the proposed filtering would "only result in slowing down the Internet for every Australian without effectively protecting children from inappropriate and offensive content." (however she did not elaborate on why it would be ineffective). Coonan claimed that: "PC-based filtering remains the most effective way of protecting children from offensive Internet content, as well as other threats that are not addressed by Labor's ISP-filtering proposals. PC-based filters are more effective at blocking all manner of offensive content, provide greater control to parents of the content their children are exposed to and do not affect the performance of the Internet for all users." She revealed that the government would shortly release a report of research commissioned by its Internet safety organisation NetAlert and conducted by researchers from RMIT in partnership with ACMA and with the assistance of Telstra, which showed that "the kind of server-based filtering proposed by Labor has been found to have a major adverse impact on network performance." According to Coonan, the preliminary findings of the trial include that: "All server-level filters tested had a major impact on network performance ranging from an 18 percent degradation for the best performing filter to 78 percent [for] the worst performing; and the server-level filters perform adequately at slower speeds, for the faster upstream connections that are common in larger ISPs, the performance degraded significantly." She further claimed that "[the] previous Government review into the filtering technology that is the basis of Labor's plan also found that it would involve implementation costs of around $45 million and ongoing costs of more than $33 million per annum for ISPs for questionable benefit." Coonan said that "a NetAlert kidsonline@home study released in 2005 found that 35 percent of families use software to filter inappropriate websites, an increase from 17 percent in 2001." She also said the government was "actively considering options for how the government might increase the uptake of PC-based filters." The Internet Industry Association (IIA) was also quick to condemn the scheme. Executive director, Peter Coroneos, said: "Under the government-backed Internet Content Code scheme which applies in Australia, ISPs are already required to provide their customers with access to a filter or filtered feed... a scheme which is internationally recognised as the most advanced of its kind in the world...Furthermore, these filters must pass rigorous independent testing to ensure they not only catch the kind of content referred to the in the Opposition's proposal, but also thousands of other sites which are likely to cause offence to adults and potential disturbance to children. "On top of all this, the scheme prohibits ISPs from profiting from the provision of these filters - they must be offered on a cost recovery basis, and some ISPs even offer them for free." He added: "It is important to recognise that the UK 'Cleanfeed' scheme (upon which the Labor proposals are modelled) was a market-driven initiative which arose because the UK lacked the strong legislative protection available to Australians."
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