Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Two of the largest providers of Internet access in Iceland are considering blocking, by definition, pornography and gambling sites. The proposal goes through the lock at the outset of pages with pornographic content, gambling or other online considered "questionable content." Customers wishing to access this type of pages will have to request that they be released, indicating the addresses "risk" that they want access. At first I thought this could be the end of icelandic online players, but seems like they will have the chance to keep having access to everything, they will only have to turn public that they want to have that access. Big Brother is watching them
Seems the ISP's would need to be legislated to maintain this policy. I can see justification regarding pron sites especially where children are involved. The gaming sites...not so much. If the ISP's are acting on their own accord then I can see a shift to ISP's who provide full service. Their share of revenue should take a hit and the shareholders mood uineasy. When you say "they will only have to turn public that they want to have that access", do you mean they will be able to "opt-in"? Not clear on what this means? Been to Iceland...beautiful country.
Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 1277
This idea is what the US have been trying to get passed in congress, to have huge restrictions on the internet and to monitor it as they please.
Very scary stuff - the fact is the shady internet stuff could be dealth with with dedicated teasm especially for the sick s**t like child porn. I know the UK has them but they need more as the internet is massive in its reach.
As for gambling - well internet restriction will just create underground gambling and illegal clubs for the harder core. Might reduce gambling in some. Essentially the government hates it because none of the money goes to them bar taxes - the general economy does not gain anything from expenditure, society does not get that money fed back to it. So it is harmful to a degree.
Iceland seems to have fairly different ways of running itself to other nations. They may be able to pass a thing like that as it is a small country but i'm sure there'd be a public outcry.
Joined: Oct '10
Location: Malta
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 44
It's the same with a lot of ISPs over here in the UK. It doesn't stop you from access but limits it to people who can prove they are 18 and over and wish to be able to access "adult" sites and online services. It is something you only need to do once and stops kids from being able to access these sites (without the aid of someone 18 or over that is). Personally I don't see this as anything bad at all as most sites aimed at adults only require a child to click the button that says yes I'm 18 to access the content on these sites. As long as they don't start totally blocking access to these sites that is, cos I love a bit of porn
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
This isn't about banning porn or gambling, it's simply switching parental controls to opt-out instead of an opt-in system. On the face of it this isn't a big brother/surveillance issue either. Internet providers can already tell which IP address you request and the same technology that determines whether your parental control settings will allow access can in theory already be used to monitor the sites you visit. It's just a case of whether the ISP companies would be interested in keeping a database on individual viewing habits or not. My opinion of capitalist organisations is that there has to be a financial motivation for this decision and it's unlikely to be a concern for public welfare or conspiracy to control the population. Nor does this have anything to do with government, at least for the time being.
What this does tell us is that most customers of ISPs are obsessed with protection from internet bad guys. They associate "bad websites" as just as much threat to their families as credit card fraud and trojan viruses. The ISPs honestly believe that more customers will buy into an internet service, which is restricted until otherwise requested, than into a service, which is free until restrictions are added. The fact that porn and gambling are tied together is a little worrying but seeing as these are both sites you wouldn't want your children to have access to, you can't really blame parents from preferring this service, especially as teens know more about changing browser settings and deleting history than their parents.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
Posted by rbdflyboy: Seems the ISP's would need to be legislated to maintain this policy. I can see justification regarding pron sites especially where children are involved. The gaming sites...not so much. If the ISP's are acting on their own accord then I can see a shift to ISP's who provide full service. Their share of revenue should take a hit and the shareholders mood uineasy. When you say "they will only have to turn public that they want to have that access", do you mean they will be able to "opt-in"? Not clear on what this means? Been to Iceland...beautiful country.
Like others have already said, what i meant was that people will have the chance to chose between wanting to have access to those type of contents or not. Think about parents who pay for internet service without using it, perhaps they want to limit the access of their children/internet users at home, to guarantee they don't have access to some of that stuff. But this will not be any "wall" in Iceland, more like a "gate" which people can chose to have opened or not.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
If they enforce this to ISP's it is going to be a big hassle but at the end, some they will find a way to overpass this. But the majority of internet users will fall under this. Such measures have been proposed for other countries too but are not in effect yet.
