Opinion: Have money, will pay for clean feed

I have a problem with Netspace’s survey.

Yes, it received some 9700 responses "in just one month", they said, but they just told us what we already knew – that people don’t want mandatory content filtering and they don’t want to pay for it in higher subscription fees or at the expense of their download speeds.

Take the question on prices: “Complying with the Federal Government's mandatory filtering policy may cause additional operational costs for ISPs which in turn may cause ISPs to raise consumer Internet prices. Do you agree that it is reasonable for consumers to pay more to facilitate mandatory ISP level filtering?”

Let’s ignore for a moment that no sane person will put their hand up to this question to say: "Yes, I’m happy for you to raise the price of my Internet so you can also censor it." Asking the question is redundant.

There’s a bigger issue at stake. If filtering goes ahead, Netspace may be forced to pass the costs on to its customers anyway, even though 70 percent think such a move is unreasonable.

You have to wonder how Netspace will skirt that issue? And then if the price increase it proposes is too high, how many of those people may churn to a rival which limits the increase or absorbs it?

Netspace then asks: “Complying with the Federal Government's mandatory filtering policy may significantly reduce the speed of your Internet service. Do you agree that reduced Internet speed is an acceptable trade off to facilitate mandatory ISP level filtering?”

We covered this last August. I don’t imagine much in the way of public opinion has changed in that time.

iTnews asked Netspace if the wording of the questions was too obvious and if they just got the answers for which they asked.

Matthew Phillips, Netspace’s regulatory and carrier affairs manager, responded: “Netspace did not have preconceived notions about our customers' responses to this or any other question on the survey. We simply want to know what our customers want.

“Netspace endeavoured to provide customers with background information and a variety of resources with which to educate [them] about the proposed ISP level filtering as an introduction to the survey.

“We did our best to be direct and clear when posing the questions to our customers in order to get their feedback about specific potential issues related to ISP level filtering.”

OK - but take the next question: “Government trials have shown that it is unlikely that any filtering system could be entirely accurate and reliable.

“As such, some websites may be blocked from viewing when in fact they contain no inappropriate content. Conversely, inappropriate websites might pass through the filter undetected.

“Do you agree that it is reasonable for consumers to experience 'innocent' websites being blocked from viewing in order to facilitate mandatory ISP level filtering?”

Talk about a leading – and loaded - question. Yes, lab trials found that some of the filter technologies available weren’t entirely accurate, but the government has also repeatedly said that these were lab trials, and that real world trials are really what are needed to get a proper idea of filter accuracy.

Taking the results of small-scale lab tests as proof of the inaccuracy and unreliability of the available filters, while refusing to participate in trials that would determine how accurate they can be in the real world, smacks of selective hearing.

Read on to page two to find out how the Netspace results feed the Government's plans.

Phillips has listed “insufficient detail, unrealistic timeframes and unclear funding arrangements” in the Internet filtering expression of interest as reasons the ISP chose not to participate in the real world trials. Netspace is also using the main survey result – that almost 80 percent of its customers don’t want mandatory Internet filtering – to reinforce this decision.

“We considered these barriers to participating in the trial in any meaningful way,” he said.

“Instead we are contributing to the discussion and debate around internet filtering in another way, by engaging our customers to find out what they want and how they feel about the Government’s ISP Filtering policy.”

But would Netspace really have us believe that this survey has generated more useful information than a real-world trial ever could?

I’m almost certain if you polled the customers of other ISPs that have agreed to participate in the real world filter trials they wouldn’t support mandatory implementation either. But those ISPs are still participating.

Oddly, the only piece of interesting data the survey has contributed to the debate somewhat supports filtering – as long as we get to choose whether or not we have it.

More than 800 respondents to the survey said they would buy a filtering service or ‘clean feed’ from their ISP if it was available. Another 2500 would ‘maybe’ buy it.

This is a rather large figure that seems to show support for a clean feed. Not a mandatory one, mind you, but the Government will likely take some solace from the idea that there is community support for a tool that can block ‘inappropriate’ content.

We asked Phillips whether the result invalidated the rest of the survey.

“Without putting words in anyone’s mouth, and extrapolating too far from the survey results themselves, I think it is safe to say that just because someone doesn’t want mandated ISP level filtering for all Australians – and doesn’t want to pay extra for mandated ISP filtering – it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider opting in to such a service if a suitable one was offered and if it met their filtering needs,” said Phillips.

“If 34.5 percent of our customers either want or would consider opting for a clean feed service, we have to take that into consideration.

“We also must understand that just about 65 percent of our customers said no, and that when it comes to mandatory ISP level filtering almost 80 percent of our customers said no.”

It seems the Internet filtering debate is now – as it always has been – just a matter of implementation. Few people support a mandatory clean feed (we certainly don’t) but a good percentage will consider one if it works and they have a choice to use it or not.

NetAlert version two anyone?