Conroy meets with Google for YouTube filtering

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had entered discussions with Google to block access to video content that was not technically feasible to filter at the ISP level.

Conroy told a Senate Estimates committee that it was technically infeasible to apply his proposed filtering regime to web sites like YouTube because it would introduce performance issues.

The Government was instead reaching out to Google to filter out refused classification video content.

"We are in discussions with companies like Google over this issue and they're ongoing," he said.

"[Google] are experts at deep packet filtering. They're probably the world's leading deep packet filterer, unbeknownst to most people.

"They have experience in blocking material in other countries at the behest of Governments, including China, Thailand and a number of other countries."

But Google Australia's head of policy Iarla Flynn told iTnews the search giant could not give the Government an assurance it would voluntarily remove all refused classification content from YouTube.

Flynn also denied that Google used deep packet inspection to filter content in other countries.

Conroy took on notice a question from Greens senator Scott Ludlam over what other third party companies the Government was negotiating with to extend the reach of the proposed filter.

Conroy also hit back at an iTnews report last year that he had briefed the Christian Lobby on the content of the ISP-level filtering report before making the content of the report public.

He said the meeting was "routine" and that he had held similar meetings with the Internet Industry Association (IIA) and individual ISPs.

"There was no special briefing for anybody," Conroy said.