oh FFS. i really can't believe some of you guys. ALL this is doing is presenting a damn OPTION to people to use isp-provided porn flitering.
No, it sets up a surveillance and tracking infrastructure that can be expanded at will without warning. I spend most of my spare time working for a political party, and one that is behind the curve on data campaigning.
errr what???? as far as I am aware we are talking about some filters which are voluntarily enforced by the end user.
The amount of data that is collated, quantified, and then used to define everything about you, from your liklihood to vote, to who you'll vote for, to what type of organic food policy will buy your vote is used. And my party is behind the curve on this stuff. Corporations and more informed political movements have been on this for a long time, and this kind of data is bought and sold with very high speed.
Don't get me wrong. I tell most of the anonymous folks and other conspiracy theorists to take their tin foil hats off and go pound sand on a semi-regular basis, but I also know exactly what this kind of data is used for and how readily available that data is.
This is like an automatic opt out to buy alcohol. No restriction to opt in, except now your name is on a list somewhere saying that you opted in. One more data point to evaluate your attitudes. Where will you vacation? What will you buy? How best to market to you? Etc etc.
The ISP's themselves will almost certainly use this list to tailor service to groups of people, and I find it highly unlikely that won't metastasize quickly.
ok this is reading like a conspiracy theory
That's even before you get into the nuts and bolts of implementation.
What is porn? Who set's that bar? Is it just sites who state they are for porn? Is it sites where that content can be downloaded? What about ones that provide instructions to acquire?
I have found the filters operated by Talk Talk for a while now to be about right so far
In this case they have dressed it up as child protection, but again, even with admirable goals, this is the role for the parent, not the state.
errr true but parents but as a parent to a 13 year old with a mobile phone, xbox 360 and access to a PC i can tell you it is a tall order and often you end up being reactionary rather than proactive due to the child's attempts to get around what ever rules you have in place so I welcome a tool like this.
Point 1: You're setting up a political precedent for blacklisting of sections of the internet that can only be solved on an
opt in basis. The tools and the precedent have been approved by government. How long before some bill blocks some other piece of content unless you opt in as well? Precedent can be just as dangerous as action.
Point 2: I know it reads like a conspiracy theory, but it's not, and I promise you that; because where I live for example, there are literally
no laws governing the use of personal data by political parties. In fact they are exempt from some laws on the matter that regulate corporations. Do a quick google of what the Conservative Party of Canada uses as a database (it's called CIMS), and you'll find some reports of the data that they collect and guard. My own party (The Liberal Party of Canada) uses the same software as the Obama campaign, just reskinned and rechristened as 'Liberalist'.
To give you an idea, when I walk up to a door to canvass, the tablet in my hand will tell me the following information:
-The names and ages of each person in that home
-Their phone numbers
-Whether or not they have voted in any given previous election
-Their likelihood to vote Liberal. <---- This is calculated as a percentage based on any number of data points we can acquire about them. This is called micro targeting, and is
highly effective at predicting voting behavior
-Any and all key interest points that we have gathered on these individuals. Survey response, what links they've clicked. As such, going up to any given door a well organized political party is likely to know that this particular voter will respond well to healthcare and education campaigning, but doesn't care as much about say, law and order related campaign points.
Now I know this is getting kind of divergent but everything i have mentioned is an
end product that the average street volunteer who just walks into our office to help out will see. These data points (particularly the percentage of liklihood to vote for us) are calculated based on every scrap of data that can be acquired about the person,, all of which is collected and quantified in our database. An opt-in list for viewing content would most certainly be used for that purpose. Also, as I said. My party i
behind the curve on this material. Thinking that other political parties and private companies don't preform this level of data-mining for marketing purposes is naive at best and ludicrous at worst.
Point 3:
Handing your child a hunting rifle does not void you of the responsibility to make sure they use it safely and for its intended purpose. Neither does giving a child a mobile phone, xbox, PC, or any other device void you of the responsibility to make sure they use it safely.
If they are impossible to police, don't give them those items. My parents certainly never had any issues policing the use of the many PC's and laptops in our household, nor my phone, gaming consoles, television use, etc.
