This is really really bad practice. Worse than 2257 and .xxx
 

Scandinavian and UK ISPs has recently implemented domain filters that are supposed to block CP sites so surfers can't access them. In cooperation with local police and child protect organization(s). And listen to this: the filtering is not based on an investigation leading to a court order, but the police has been given simple power to judge the websites and then updating lists, send them to ISPs which handle the technical part. If the website is "suspicious" the surfer gets redirected to a message like this (both in local and english language:

Take note of the "may contain" !


Blocking access to obvious CP sites is fine, but the problem is that they also filter sites in the greyzone. One of the major ISPs even states in an interview that "they have a zero tolerance policy for CP and consequently filter all sites - including sites in the greyzone". (the article with interviews is here, in danish though: http://www.computerworld.dk/art/33173?a=fp&i=1 )

This kind of practice has been under heavily critisism by legal experts, three most important:
- First of all, by filtering sites based on a judgement without a court order, is censoring rather than a concrete legit investigation.
- Second, the replacement message signals that the owner run a pedo site, without even a trial..... NOT good, if you are innocent and your whois is public.

FEW DAYS AGO THE WORST THING HAPPENED:

A danish website, which had no CP and not even contained something that looked like teen niche, was "wrongly" filtered, resulting the owner look like a pedo. His info was public in whois. After complaining he got no response back, before he got in touch with the media to tell his story. Now, how far out is that? Then the police admitted the "error" and apologized... yeah, right.. we are not talking about car tickets here!
From the interview above, both ISP and police comment the responsibility, and the police chief say its the ISPs task to decide which sites to close, and opposite the ISP says its the polices task... make up your mind :helpme

And... if this is common incompetent practice, is not the outrageous "effectiviness" of their filters and the shocking high numbers of surfers trying to "access illegal sites", as they have published in Scandinavia and UK medias on their intro weeks, just a bunch of bullshit??
Not to mention what the surfers are exposed to in hundred thousands of homes??

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Anyway, this has concerned me from the beginning. Not that they filter the illegal sites, but the way they do it, and that innocent webmasters are punished.

I can also inform you that several TGPs out there, no matter the country/domain, are now filtered. I have refused trade requests because of this and I have been forced to drop a trade. Even if I know for certain that there are nothing illegal. Its not underage sites, but teen sites, what they call the greyzone. I informed one of the trades, and after 2 months he finally got whitelistes...there were nothing illegal after all... just proving that the above case was not the first "error" as they tell the media.
Most of you do not have significant traffic from Scandinavia/UK, but if this kind of practice and ISP policy spread to other countries, it will be a major problem for the entire industry. You dont really know which country is blocking what, because its not an international filter either.

If your traffic from these countries has dropped alot for you, maybe you have an idea why now....

yep,

One of my sites are in their filter as well :-( it is a gay twink site..

This, my friends...is the wave of the future.

Im afraid it is. Every country simply is trying to get rid of porn. Its crazy because porn IS the internet.

this kind of thing would never stand up in court. i can see such a system being set up but they can't just ban any site they don't like.

all it does is bring new op's

people WANT porn , they arent going to be satisfied without it. if isp's ban legal porn , there will be other isp's who will open up and ignore the filters..

I think its great isp's have stepped up tot he plate to try and tackle this shit in their own backyards, if they abuse this right they will hurt their customer base.. ( i.e. if they filer material based on their own religious/social agenda not based on legality )

DK is quite liberal. Scat, beast.. everything except CP is legal. The problem is not the laws, but that power is delegated to some individuals which job is to judge (censor) instead of doing an real investigation and then take people to court with evidence.
I have no idea of they work, but telling surfers that this might be a pedo site, even without hard proof, is a really scary development. Whats next?

give it time.
some political site which does not kiss the government's ass will also be labeled CP.
then what?
CP is the perfect excuse to do whatever they want.
you will read, speak, think and say as the powers that be dictate.

its a good idea if its true cp but for them to be able to pick and choose its not.

Internet service providers are participating in the blocking of the sites.

ISP's provide a service to you for a fee. If you do not like the service...then do not pay the fee.

Where is your argument?

Not sure how it is other places, but in Denmark it is free and forced.
I dont mind it being forced, but apparently they are blocking other sites than CP as well, wich is a very bad thing.
Especially since they are claiming how good the filter is with 30-35K visitors blocked per day. That could just as well be 99% of traffic trying to go to a high traffic TGP / MGP and then 1% that is real CP.
If you run such a filter, and it is forced, mistakes should not happend as the owners of the sites are being LABELLED as CP webmasters.

The argument is, that not only do the ISP's block your site, they also replace your site with a statement labelling you as a child abuser, signed by the ISP in question, the police and Save the Children.

Furthermore, the ISP's have been threatened (or blackmailed, you choose) by the government to implement this filter, or they would be subject to new laws which would both complicate their business and force them into implementing the filter anyway.

People are idiots. Time to buy an island and move.

I have seen that filter... missed by a mile!

Thats some fucked uped shit

what is the domain?

bump------------

of course they're not. geez, where's a :rolleyes: smily when you need one

Its the start of global censorship on the internet

I don't understand why politicians love to hate porn when the citizens love to watch it... I guess its the 1 complaint means a billion people are offended, so 6 complaints means 6 billion people are offended by porn.

This is only the start, just wait till our governments start passing laws so ISPs have to block anything that the government deems offensive. It'll all be done in the name of protecting its citizens

In the not too distant future I think the internet will work like it does in China, you'll only see what the government want you to see on the internet

fuck...afterwards they will move all sites to .xxx and then simply ban this domains:)

p2p one day might be one of the only sources

Actually its an EU project. It will be implemented in ALL EU-countries soon.

bump 4 the fascism :) :(

I for one am not worried.

They close down porn on the Internet they badly effect the whole structure of the Internet and computing.

Why buy a computer and connection that works at twice the speed of light and store 500 GIG of data if not for porn or games. The kids play games and do not control the home budget, even though they think they do. Dad does and he wants the porn.

Where did I put my tin foil hat?