There's more than one way for an honest Net porn site to duck the big bad puddy tat when he comes scratching at the door - move the site offshore, or at least overseas. That's what Sweet Teens did, moving from an Australian server to one based in the United States.
The site (www.teenager.com.au) made its move in January, after the Australian government ordered it to take down its sexually-explicit material from its original Australian servers, says Wired. The order was one of four the Australian Broadcasting Authority issued since New Year's Day, when Australia's new limits to unrestricted "obscene and indecent online" content access took effect.
The move means only that Web surfers get carried forward to American servers, beyond the reach of the authorities down under, the magazine says. And the ABA isn't exactly crying foul, either. "Technically, they have complied with the take-down notice we issued," ABA special projects manager Stephen Nugent tells Wired.
The law's opponents seem to see the Sweet Teens move as highlighting how futile it really is to control online content "in an era of mouse-click regulatory arbitrage," the magazine says. "Instead of being driven underground, these sites are merely being driven overseas," Robbie Swan, spokesman for Australia's adult industry lobby the Eros Foundation, tells Wired. "The law is terribly flawed."
The new law mandates the ABA to evaluate public complaints about alleged overly violent, sexually explicit, or otherwise offensive Net material, referring those it deems with merit to the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification for a rating similar to the American film rating system.
"The fact that it [www.teenager.com.au] is now overseas-hosted content means it now comes under a different set of procedures," Nugent tells Wired. "Referral of the material to makers of approved filters is an option open to us."
He says the other three Web sites given takedown orders may or may not have reposted elsewhere.
