The Age reported last Tuesday:
AUSTRALIA'S largest internet service provider has said it will not participate in trials of the Federal Government's controversial national internet filter.
Telstra's BigPond said yesterday it would not be part of the pilot, which will run for six weeks from this month, citing "customer management issues".
It wouldn't say what the issues were but Telstra is believed to be worried about the effect on its reputation of any inconvenience to customers.
I was also rather surprised at this position because I had thought that Telstra would eventually come on board after it had wrung a few unrelated concessions from the federal government.After all, that is its modus operandi.
However, it quickly became apparent that Telstra is actually running true to type and hedging its bet.
It also announced that it was; separately evaluating technology that allows the blocking of defined blacklists .
According to iNet News:
It is understood the Federal Government has invited some 400-plus ISPs to participate – so Telstra's decision is undoubtedly a blow to Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy's proposal.
The minister most concerned, Senator Stephen Conroy, must really be scratching for participants about now with only iNet and Optus definitely joining the trial and the sign-on date having past last Monday.
Let us hope that the version of an Internet filter which Telstra envisions is a voluntary opt-in plan, because anything else is likely to see a mass migration of its customer base.
The lighter side of Conroy's stubborn refusal to understand the severe limitations of his censorship plan is the fact that he has started a community consultation blog on the subject (which of course he intends to moderate to within an inch of its life whilst allowing pseudonym comment so that his staff may influence comment trends).
I decided to make a brief sober comment in relation to Minister Tanner's welcome post on this new blog and, surprise, surprise, I'm still waiting for my comment to be published.
Due to the time lag between lodging a comment and the same comment passing moderator's inspection, this clumsy attempt at e-consultation may yet wither on the vine.
APC's article on teh blog, The 10 sins of Senator Conroy the blogger, is here.