ISPs think Conroy is incompetent on Internet filtering: iiNet boss

By Stan Beer
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 14:21

Government Tech Policy

The managing director of Australia's third largest Internet service provider has let fly with another tirade against Australian Communications Minister, Senator Conroy, claiming that the ISP community are not impressed with him.

Expressions of interest to particpate in an ISP filtering trial conducted by the Department of Broadband and the Digital Economy close on December 8.

The Federal Government's intention to press ahead with the trial for madatory filtering at the ISP level has met with widespread opposition from within the ISP and wider Internet community, as well as technical and civil libertarian groups.

Michael Malone, managing director of iiNet, told iTWire that it is the company's intention to destroy the impending ISP filtering Pilot and has slammed Senator Conroy for what he believes is a waste of taxpayers' money in conducting the trial.

"Half of the ISP community think he's an idiot while the other half think he's incompetent," said Mr Malone.

"This Minister would have you believe that this is all about filtering kiddie porn but it's not. It's about filtering websites and anyone who knows anything knows that kiddie porn doesn't appear on websites - it's circulated privately between members of closed rings."

According to Mr Malone, content filtering at the ISP level has been trialled in many free world countries previously and rejected.

"The only countries in the world today that have mandatory content filtering at the ISP level are China and Saudi Arabia. What does that tell you?

"What will happen if filters are applied is that genuine websites will get blocked that shouldn't be blocked. What's more the filters will be easy to bypass even for kids.

"We're going to participate in the trials because we intend to break it."

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