The British internet service providers have been under political pressure to restrict access to “adult” websites that offer violent, pornographic content and gambling services. The first results of that pressure have arrived after some ISP giants announced that they will ask their customers to first opt-in if they don’t want their access to such sites to be blocked.
The first one to make an announcement on this topic was ISP Sky. According to statements released last week, Sky is planning to launch the Sky Broadband Shield, which is a filtering program, by the first week in February. This means that Sky users will have to change their settings and opt-in to adult sites if they want to be able to access Sky’s sites.
Another ISP has issued a similar statement for its HomeSafe filter. TalkTalk is also planning to start the changes in February and it will require its members to opt-in for access to adult sites.
However, not all ISP have been so welcoming. Virgin Media believes that their clients are the ones who should decide whether they want filtering or not and hence they made it possible for them to activate the option by themselves. According to Virgin Media so far only 10% decided to make the step. BT, on the other hand, is undertaking a survey in order to find out how its users feel about automated filtering.
In any case, players and gambling operators are worried that the ISP block may end up blocking perfectly legitimate entities, which is something not that uncommon. Some internet freedom action groups have already started to give examples of over-blocking such as the one that took place in Australia several years ago. Finally, a report from Ofcom, a watchdog, showed that less than 13% percent of customers opted in to filtering and that over-blocking errors did take place in the past.