SYDNEY, 13 FEBRUARY 2009 - One of the key technical strategists behind United States President Barack Obama's successful online election campaign has added to the chorus of disapproval over the federal government's controversial mandatory internet filtering plans.
Ben Self, the founder of online electoral and consumer engagement company Blue State Digital, which helped the Obama team raise $US500 million in online donations, said similar policy discussions in the US had been met with concerns about the potential censorship of internet information.
"It is a tough road to walk down ... It is always a dangerous thing to start filtering content of any type," Mr Self said.
The filtering of internet content at the service provider level forms a crucial part of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's $125.8 million cyber safety policy, which was announced at the last federal budget.
It has attracted criticism from freedom of speech advocates and telecommunications experts, who fear filtering will further slow down Australian internet speeds.
On Wednesday Senator Conroy announced a list of six internet services providers, who would take part in a six-week trial, with customers being given the choice of opting in. The ISPs involved are Primus Telecommunications, Tech2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1. However the absence of major players such as Telstra, Optus and iiNet from the trial, has led many observers to question its validity.
Telecommunications specialist, Craig Skinner from analyst firm Ovum said the government had set up the trial so that the results would back its policy.
"If we only test with very small ISPs then it will hide the potential problems of quality degradation for the majority of users, and more than likely give the government better results than would actually occur in reality," Mr Skinner said.
Mr Skinner said his company had been commissioned by the previous government to provide a report on the potential of internet filtering, and had told them not to do it because of the impact on performance.
"Beyond the NBN [national broadband network], internet filtering will have an even bigger effect on internet performance than we envisaged back in 2003," Mr Skinner said.
"Other countries that have put in internet filtering have found people can find ways around it if they really want to, so you don't get the benefits and you get plenty of other problems."
Shadow Communications Minister, Nick Minchin said the absence of the country's major telcos meant the trials lacked any credibility and Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam ridiculed the optional nature of the trial, saying that anyone planning to download illegal material would simply opt out.
"I can only assume that this trial is for show, so the government can tick a box and say they've tested this deeply unpopular censorship plan before implementing it," Senator Ludlam said.
iiNet's chief technology officer Greg Bader said he believed speculation that the company's previous criticisms of the filtering scheme had led to its exclusion from the trials, was wide of the mark.
Mr Bader said iiNet would be working with the Australian Communications and Media Authority during the trial to provide technical assistance in updating the "blacklist" of blocked websites.
"Our public view has not changed and we still have concerns about how useful the filtering model will be," Mr Bader said.
"If the material on the blacklist is illegal then we have no issue stopping it. But of greater concern to us is what could be added if a secret list is maintained by the government. The Thai blacklist was leaked online last December and 20 per cent of the URLs filtered were anti-government."
A spokeswoman for Optus confirmed that it had applied to take part in the ISP filtering trial early in 2009, but had not been selected.
She said Optus would continue to work with the government on its application to be part of the trial.
You can watch Ben Self's interview on video here
