I’m in Crikey today, looking at Senator Conroy’s announcement from last week of the first six ISPs to be taking part in the Internet “filtering” trials: Primus Telecommunications (iPrimus), Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Highway 1 and Netforce.
One of the questions I ask is: Why is there further mission creep?
Labor’s pre-election policy said: “A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries.” Apart from pointing out again that “offer” isn’t the same as “require everyone to use”, the policy doesn’t mention business premises. Yet three of the ISPs (Highway 1, OMNIconnect and Netforce) are business-only ISPs.
As network engineer Mark Newton says, “If the Government is scope-creeping its plan to include business, I think it has some explaining to do.”
The article isn’t behind the paywall so it’s free to read.