MANUKA, Australia - The Internet Industry Association will meet with Labor's new Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy this week to brief the federal government on mandatory content filtering by Internet-service providers.
"It's premature to say anything more at the moment, except that there are concerns in the industry on implementing anything that could be unworkable," said Peter Coroneos, executive director of the IIA.
For 10 years, the IIA has been fighting legislation that would force Internet companies to act as censors and filter content.
In 1999, the Howard government approved a co-regulatory scheme giving the IIA power to order Internet-service providers to take down prohibited content hosted in Australia. In August, the group began supplying content-screening software as part of $190 million plan to shield children from online sex predators and pornography.
At that time, Conroy said that if he were elected, Labor would introduce laws requiring Internet-service providers to provide "clean feeds." Following the election, the IIA increased its lobbying against mandatory filtering.
"This has remained a fairly controversial political issue for a long time in Australia," Coroneos said. "In some respects, it's regrettable because we think a lot of the real issues that affect child safety are not addressed by filtering, but require commitments to more fundamental issues in society. I think that's really where the focus needs to shift."
The IIA says filtering by Internet-service providers is unworkable. A top concern is that it would clog Internet services at a time when the market is demanding faster broadband.
Dale Clapperton, chair of the online civil-liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the Internet-filtering systems are unreliable and give the government too much power to control what adults could view.
Labor has stated its plan to use a series of blacklists to block sites. Clapperton said the policy documents indicate that Internet users would be required to opt out of using the blacklists and it was not clear what types of content would be blocked.
"It's not the government's place to tell adult Australians that they aren't allowed to see or read certain content," Clapperton said.
During an address at the communications conference in Sydney last week, John Lindsay of Adelaide-based Internet-service provider Internode said Internet filtering could be used to impose values on surfers.
"None of the filters offered explains what criteria they filter by," he said. "I didn't see 'Judeo-Christian values' or '100 percent Islamic' or 'evolutionist green progressive alternative,'" he said.
