Mediaboss Marketing

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Suzanne Choney

Once again, the British government may try to get Internet service providers to be the babysitters charged with keeping onlineporn away from children. A similar effortin late2010 failed, but now it's back in a different form.

The previous plan would haverequired adult, at-home Internet users toasktheir ISPs for access to porn. That went over well with the Brits (not): "Yes, please, may I have my daily dose of Internet porn now, and thank you."

The revamped approach is only slightly less humiliating for adults: They would be required to "opt in" with their Internet service provider if they don't want all adult content blocked. And, as many of us know first-hand, opt in/opt out lingo can be mighty confusing, with the user ofteninadvertentlypicking the "wrong" choice.

There are other concerns.

"Forcing ISPs to filter adult content at the network level, which users would then have to opt out of, is neither the most effective nor most appropriate way to prevent access to inappropriate material online," saidNicholas Lansman, secretary general of Britain's Internet Service Providers Association, in a pressstatement.

"It is easy to circumvent, reduces the degree of active interest and parental mediation and has clear implications for freedom of speech. Instead parents should choose how they restrict access to content, be it on the device or network level, with the tools provided."

Ah, the parents.

Britain's Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection said in a recent report that the problem is too overwhelming for parents alone to deal with:

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UK wants Internet providers to block porn by default