commentary Time for a quick poll. Hands up if you've downloaded one of those NetAlert family-friendly Internet filters the federal government has been spruiking.
Anyone?
I'm curious. Curious because when the federal government dishes out AU$189 million to "protect our children" from the bad ol' Internet, it smells of electioneering.
Curious because when ZDNet Australia asked the Department for Communications, IT and the Arts how many Australians have downloaded the filters since the campaign started a month ago, we've been given short shrift.
A spokesperson for the department told us that a "realistic picture" of the uptake of the filters won't be known until after the government mails out millions of information packs on NetAlert to every Australian home at the end of this month.
I suggested that this was evading the very simple question: how many people have downloaded a filter in the month to date?
The spokesperson's response: "I am not evading the question, I am telling you that until the information campaign and mail out is complete we will not have a realistic picture of the take up of the filters and will not be releasing any figures until that point."
What then, may I ask, was the point of spending AU$22 million on an advertising campaign for NetAlert? All those ads on the sides of buses and phone boxes, all those ads in every TV commercial break, was it not the government's aim to let Australian families know that a solution was available? That it could be downloaded today?
I'm not for a second arguing that we shouldn't be making every effort to protect children from abuse, on or offline.
But the department's silence on how popular the scheme has been, coupled with reports that suggest the motivations for the NetAlert campaign were based on some fairly loose data, raises questions.
If nobody is downloading the filters, the government has either misread their constituents concerns, or the campaign is actually about creating concerns, not calming them.
With catch-phrases like "Talking online leads to stalking online", perhaps the real danger is that the Internet is being demonised for political purposes.
Conveniently, this uncertainty around Internet content is being used to grant the authorities greater censorship powers.
The Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007 was rushed through parliament with no public consultation, giving the Australian Federal Police the power to demand that ACMA block any Internet content it deems to be "prohibited" or -- here's the rub -- "potentially prohibited" by Australian law.
This rather arbitrary definition gives the authorities the right to ban whatever content they want: sites they perhaps don't understand, for instance, or sites with dissenting opinion.
If you have (or haven't) downloaded a NetAlert filter, we'd love your feedback.
... how about putting the PC in the living room where the rest of the family is? I'm sure that would be a lot cheaper than $189 million...