News comes today that the Australian Federal Government has all but abandoned its NetAlert Internet software filter. Parents could obtain the software free of charge and customise its settings locally and to suit their family’s needs.
In an amazingly simplistic article from news.com.au (a tautology, I know), it’s still interesting to see that the take-up of the free software has been underwhelming - to the point that only 2% of households with dependent age children and an internet connection were using the filter in November 2008.

Both sides of politics have this so completely wrong - Labor is proposing a mandatory Internet filter, while the Opposition comes out with statements like, “Australians families were now less protected than before.” I sat listening to the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy tell a theatre full of librarians their services to the public may have their funding dry up if the libraries don’t sign up to the proposed Internet filter. Of all the industries to have pitched that to, he chooses the one which expressly protects freedom of speech and information, while abhorring censorship in all its forms.

And finally, read a sensible word from Electronic Frontiers Australia.

Or read more about the No Clean Feed campaign.