residential products
iiNet and internet filtering
You may have heard our latest news on the ISP filtering front - after months of negotiations with the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, we've decided to withdraw from the proposed trial. This means none of iiNet's customers will be affected in any way.
Our view has always been that the proposed filter itself is majorly flawed, using an approach that has been discredited by industry experts time and time again. We wanted to participate in the trial in order to demonstrate the system's inadequacies, yet the requirements of the trial itself have caused some confusion.
For instance, the filter is described by the Government as mandatory, but we were being asked to make the trial opt-in. It seems unreasonable that the Government intends to trial an opt-in filter for what is set to be a mandatory system.
Causing more confusion still, the Government isn't prepared to confirm whether the filter is aimed at blocking child pornography or simply 'unwanted content' - they haven't provided clear parameters. The leak of the so-called 'blacklist' of sites suggested that there was much more than illegal content on the filtering list. Some of these were described as 'PG' and some, clearly political.
An agreement on how our trial would be structured couldn't be reached, so we, in good conscience, couldn't participate in the trial and still reconcile this with our corporate responsibility, customer service objectives and public position on the censorship issue.
It seems that after constant changes to the policy, confused messages regarding the trial's purpose and supposed 'blacklist leaks', it could even be said that the trial itself has become somewhat unnecessary. The Government needs to redefine their goals surrounding the internet censorship issue; otherwise the proposal will go nowhere.
Thanks for your support along the way. Many of our customers contacted us to indicate their concerns about the filtering trial and we appreciate their input. We believe this decision will sit comfortably with those that offered an opinion.
You can check out our official press release here:
