I an attempt to combat child pornography, four of Australia’s largest ISPs are about to jointly introduce a system that will block a blacklist of Refused Classification (RC) websites (child pornography and sex abuse material). The ISPs wish to involve an oversight committee or tribunal-style system to review the contents of the blacklist. Additional ISPs are expected to join the effort at a later date.

The Australian federal government’s controversial ISP filtering report is expected to be released later this week, with the results showing that many filtering methods worked without any marked impact on network speeds – however filters were said to be less effective when faced with VPNs or peer-to-peer applications.

Australia’s government has set aside $125.8m in funding for additional Australian Federal Police officers devoted to cybercrime, as well as an education and information strategy, the establishment of help-lines and websites, and making arrangements between the industry and child protection bodies.

Source: Major ISPs forge own effort on Internet blacklist, Commsday.com, December 14, 2009

Tags: Australia, child pornography, internet service providers (ISPs), content filtering