Australian Internet Filtering Expression Of Interest Put Forward
THIS afternoon the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy officially released a wide net expression of interest for a trial phase of ISP level filtering.
According to publicly available documents that have been released by the Department…
“Limited funding is available for ISPs participating in the Pilot”
What exactly does this mean?
It means that the Government is willing to help ISP’s by defraying some of the costs associated with funding equipment and software relating to filtering their customers Internet.
But as Mark Newton from Internode points out that there is…
” No mention of increased support costs arising from end-user complaints.”
Sounds like a great deal for ISPs.
Purchase equipment that their users will hate of which will increase support costs.
Bargain.
The Government outlines it’s intention of the live trials as..
“Assessment of the end users’ filtering experience”
Surveys will also be done with consent from the customers, but will the customers get to opt-out of the trial?
“This will involve a survey of a sample of the ISPs customer base following consent from the ISP’s customers.”
And then there was this…
“Participating ISPs will be able to charge their customers on a commercial basis for more
advanced filtering solutions (that is, solutions beyond blocking of the Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist)”
Am I the only one confused? Are the Government admitting that their system of a blacklist system is flawed?
Mark Newton from Internode points out the various flaws on Whirlpool and in his ABC opinion piece today.
The trial is going to run for a a minimum of 6 weeks with ISP’s entering in to the live trial needing to sign Non Disclosure Agreements.
“Successful applicants will need to install the ACMA blacklist on their filtering solution. To
gain access to the blacklist the successful ISP and, if appropriate their filter vendor, will be
required to enter into a non disclosure agreement with ACMA. ACMA will then provide a copy of the blacklist and any updates for the duration of the Pilot.”
You can read more here
So, I don’t get it. First they have to apply, if successful they get an offset of SOME costs, not all, then they have to deal with support complaints, AND they have to sign a stupid NDA, and then, and only then, do they actually get a list of the blocked sites?!?!?!?
[sarcasm] Sounds like the end users really WIN!!! ALL FOR THE GREAT FIREWALL OF AUSTRALIA SAY AYE!!! w00t I can’t wait!!! This’ll be the GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO AUSTRALIA!! w000000t!!
[/sarcasm]
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NDA? Great, so that will effectively silence Mark Newton. If it wasn’t for him speaking out in a personal level in the first place then the Australian public would still be completely in the dark about there being two lists as opposed to the originally announced one, and we wouldn’t know that the second list is for illegal and “otherwise objectionable” material, what ever that is.
Seriously, IS this Australia I live in or what? I honestly can’t tell any more.