SYDNEY, Australia -- Australia's Internet industry, trying to avoid more direct government controls over online content, is proposing a host of self-regulatory measures, among them end-user filtering, Web site labeling, and adult verification methods.
But online rights activists are calling the proposals "privatized censorship" under which ISPs and content providers will have to go overboard in curbing self-expression in order to avoid antagonizing authorities.
In late June, Australia passed what may be the world's most extensive online content laws. The law gives the Australian Broadcasting Authority power to directly censor online content starting in March next year if local industry doesn't have in place an acceptable self-regulatory regime by year's end.
On Monday, the Australian Internet Industry Association (IIA) released an updated draft of self-regulatory "code of practice." In the draft, the IIA proposes pushing responsibility for content filtering as far down toward end users as possible.
Summarized under the buzzword "industry-facilitated user empowerment," the code directs ISPs to make filtering software available to end users, and to provide ISP-level filtering if an individual user requests it. It would also encourage Web site operators to include content labeling on their own sites.
"We would have preferred for the industry to say: 'We don't agree with this legislation at all,'" said Darce Cassidy, executive director of the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia. "Instead, they seemed to have gone for a compromise."
Stephen Nugent, special projects manager at the Australian Broadcasting Authority and the man responsible for approving the IIA's self-regulatory plan, declined to comment on the draft code, saying he hadn't read it yet.
But he pointed out the rules are merely a draft being circulated for comment within the industry. After a public comment period in September, the code will be finalized and then become the subject of detailed negotiations between the IIA and the ABA.
Australia's online content law -- the Online Services Act, known formally as the Broadcasting Services Amendment, goes into effect 1 January.
Among other things, it calls for a movie-like rating system to be applied to online content. ISPs would be forced to remove content from their servers deemed "X" (Sexually Explicit) or "RC" (Refused Classification, often applied to very violent material), once notified in writing by the ABA.
They would also be required to provide means of blocking access to material housed overseas deemed "X" or "RC," once notified in writing by the ABA.
Australian ISPs worry the new law is forcing them to become online content street cops, charged with the impossible task of monitoring everything passing through their networks.
