The battle is still on for internet filters

Google and Yahoo have joined two Australian organizations urging the government to reconsider the country’s internet filter plans. The government has announced proposals to implement internet filters which would block access to all Refused Classification (RC) content.

The main issue is that the opposing groups fell that blocking off RC material completely is too wide and may restrict educational and social material. In addition, the filters give parents a false sense of security as it does not really protect children from internet abuse which often occur in chatrooms, not covered by the filters.

The signatories include the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Inspire Foundation, which encourages young people to get online.

ALIA's Executive Director Sue Hutley said that blanket bans on material through filtering have been "shown to trap legitimate information and adversely affect valid internet access and performance". In addition, the ALIA website reports that government trials of the filter will filter off sites with high traffic.

Dealing with sites such as YouTube could "cause additional load on the filtering infrastructure and subsequent performance bottlenecks," they claim.

The controversy began following the announcement for the internet filter by Stephen Conroy, Australia’s Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy in 2008. A backlash that occurred on 10 and 11 February was the attack on government websites by a group called Anonymous.

Groups including Systems Administrators Guild of Australia (SAGE-AU) and Electronic Frontiers Australia have spoken out against it, and the topic is highly discussed on Twitter.

With much opposition from highly reputable companies like Google and Yahoo, the government needs to consider their opinions as they are experts in this area.