The Minister for Information Technology, Senator Richard Alston, the man responsible for Australia's controversial push for an Internet censorship regime, has been in Silicon Valley on a trade mission this week. But stamping out child porn wasn't on the agenda.
Alston's Online Services Bill, which will restrict porn and other offensive material if it is passed into law this month, has drawn criticism from free speech groups. US Senator Ron Wyden even went so far as to claim the legislation violated an Australian-U.S. e-commerce agreement.
But that legislation, which has drawn flack on both sides of the Pacific, only came up once during Alston's Silicon Valley sojourn -- at Yahoo! In this interview with ZDNN News Producer Joel Deane, Alston said Silicon Valley executives like HealthEon founder Jim Clark were more interested in Australia's investment climate than its Net regulations.
Watch the full Alston interview, where the Australian Government's minister for communications, information technology and the arts discusses everything from Net censorship to the Ku Klux Klan's efforts to recruit Australians via the Internet.
Click here to see the full ZDNet interview with Senator Richard Alston.
