Last month I blogged about how the Australian government's decision to drop the educational NetAlert program and move forward with mandatory ISP filtering would do little to help protect families down under from the dangers on the Internet. 

To the surprise of many, including myself, it appears that the plan "has effectively been scuttled" according the the Sydney Morning Herald.  The fallout appears to come from independent Senator Nick Xenophon's decision to join the Greens and Opposition in blocking any legislation required to get the scheme started.

"The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has consistently ignored advice from a host of technical experts saying the filters would slow the internet, block legitimate sites, be easily bypassed and fall short of capturing all of the nasty content available online," the Morning Herald stated. On the heels of this, Senator Conroy still plans on moving ahead with the trial and even expanding it's scope outside of blocking illegal web site content. Senator Conroy recently said there was "a very strong case for blocking" other legal content that has been "refused classification." According to the classification code, this includes sites depicting drug use, crime, sex, cruelty, violence or "revolting and abhorrent phenomena" that "offend against the standards of morality".

Besides facing opposition from online consumers, lobby groups, ISPs, network administrators, some children's welfare groups, the Opposition, the Greens, NSW Young Labor and even the conservative Liberal senator Cory Bernardi, who famously tried to censor the chef Gordon Ramsay's swearing on television, Senator Conroy faces the toughest battle against the families he believes he is protecting. A poll from 2 weeks ago found that only 5 per cent of Australians want ISPs to be responsible for protecting children online and only 4 per cent want Government to have this responsibility. Parents actuallly want to take responsibility for what content their children consume. 

Parental control?
Imagine that.

A very enlightening analytical report has come out of the European Union, conducted by the Gallup Organization, upon the request of Directorate General Information Society and Media. You can read the full report here.

This survey was designed to study parents views about their children's use of the Internet, to determine parents strategies to supervise their child's Internet usage and their own awareness of safety measures.

Some results of note:

• Half of the parents who did not use the Internet themselves said that their child had online access. Nine out of 10 children – who were Internet users – accessed it from home.   
• The biggest risk in parents eyes (65%) was that their child might see sexually or violently explicit images on the Internet: 45% were very worried.   
• Parents in all countries mentioned that they have various rules and restrictions when their child used the Internet. For example, approximately eight out of 10 parents listed online shopping, talking to people that their child did not know in real life and spending a lot of time online as activities that were not allowed for their child.    
• Almost three out of 10 Dutch parents (28%) and a quarter of the parents in the UK (24%) said that, when their child asked for their help, this was because they had been contacted by a stranger, were bullied or harassed online or saw violently or sexually explicit images online.  

On the use of monitoring and filtering software

• Half of the parents participating in this survey answered that they had installed filtering software on the computer that their child used at home. Monitoring software was not as popular, but was still used by almost four out of 10 parents (37%).    
• There was considerable variation across countries in the use of monitoring and filtering software: more than half of the British parents used such software compared to only 5% of the parents in Romania and Bulgaria.  

Reasons for not using monitoring and filtering software

• More than six out of 10 parents – who did not use filtering or monitoring software – simply saw no need for such software since they trusted their child on the Internet. Fourteen percent of the parents who did not use filtering or monitoring software did not know how to obtain or use it. Only a minority (3%) did not use such software because they did not believe in its efficiency.  

There are many observations that come from reading this detailed look across the countries that make up the EU about cultural differences and parental perspectives. One that sticks out to me is how many parents trust their kids on the Internet, without using the Internet themselves. This is a generation gap that must be crossed. As a parent, I find this issue to be particularly troubling. I trust my kids, and I know what TV shows, movies, games and books my kids read or view, I know what friends they are talking to on the phone or whose house they are at...why wouldn't I want to know what they are doing online?

Over the last couple weeks the Australian government has decided to end the NetAlert program, which was set-up 18 months ago to promote and distribute parental controls and Internet filters to every Australian family for free. That's right, the Australian government initially got it spot on by advocating responsible parenting and a holistic approach to Internet safety that included outreach, education and flexible empowerment tools.  

A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said there were only 26,000 copies of the software still being used as of November 2008. "Only about 2 per cent of households with dependent age children and an internet connection (were) using the filter," he said. This low number is a result of a poor marketing and awareness campaign, bad distribution planning, as well as the lack of known brand name parental controls being part of the program.

With the cancellation of the NetAlert program, the current political party has decided instead to introduce mandatory filtering at the ISP level. This has caused great controversy and outcries from down under that include censorship issues from Internet users, degradation of speeds that impact ISP customers, as well as forcing ISPs to become gatekeepers. This isn't sitting well with Telstra BigPond and the other service providers.

The most troubling aspect of the proposed ISP filtering mandate is the false sense of security that parents and educators will get from this. In today's evolving Web 2.0 world, the issues that effect and impact kids go beyond exposure to inappropriate adult or illegal material. Cyberbullying, harassment, sexual predators, phishing, phriending, illegal downloading, gambling and gaming addiction are just a few of the other challenges parents face when attempting to protect and monitor their child's Internet use. The NetAlert program tackled many of these complex issues by providing flexible and customizable desktop filtering clients which assist today's busy parents by filtering and blocking inappropriate content, as well as monitoring and reporting on inappropriate conduct and contacts.

Now, instead of promoting Internet safety and getting schools, parents, and businesses involved in what kids are doing online, the Australian government has instead gone down the path of the "federal firewall" by enacting heavy handed mandates that may stop some already illegal content from being accessed by it's citizens, but at what cost?