ISPs Reject Australian Filter Plan

Many Australian ISPs have rebuffed the government on its plans to filter net traffic and block thousands of sites.

The Australian government faces a rebellion by the country’s ISPs over its plan to filter Net content and block 10,000 sites. Initial trials of the system were due to begin before Christmas, but Telstra, the country’s largest ISP, has said it will not participate, as has Internode, while others have said they will only support a smaller system that blocks access to a 1300-strong list of sites hosting illegal content, according to Australian newspaper The Age.

The wide filters were the brainchild of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which found in its research that existing filters didn’t work well and proposed a mandatory system for the country.

Among others ISPs, Optus has agreed to take part in a scaled-down trial next year, but only if it just blocks the sites hosting illegal content.

The filters have caused a furor in Australia. The Green Party has demanded the government abandoned it, and there were plans for demonstrations against it on Saturday in Sydney and Melbourne.