CyberLaw Blog

Archive for February 24th, 2009

Row over web blacklist | Australian IT

Fran Foo | February 24, 2009

MAJOR inconsistencies have emerged in the way a top-secret blacklist of web pages is managed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The content of the list of illegal, prohibited and potential prohibited web pages is meant to be strictly confidential. It is the backbone of the federal Government’s internet censorship plan.

The list is of critical importance as it is being used as a basis for internet filtering trials, which involves internet service providers blocking web pages.

ACMA is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act 1982, and disclosure of information on the blacklist could jeopardise efforts to block access to harmful and offensive online material.

‘ACMA would not disclose information if doing so would contradict the Freedom of Information Act,’ the spokesman said.

Recent actions by ACMA, however, have called into question its methods of administering the list.

On January 5, an internet user in Melbourne, known online as Foad, lodged a complaint with ACMA about content on an anti-abortion web page, not the entire website. The man did not want his real name published for fear of reprisals. He said his motive was to test the system and show that web pages not showing material connected with sexual abuse of children could end up on the blacklist.
(more…)