Korea & Oz: Porn-blocking moves

The Korean government this week announced a passel of measures it will be taking to protect children and teens in cyberspace, the Korea Times reports. Some of those measures will be laws requiring ISPs to be "juvenile protectors" and regulating advertising; funding new filtering technology for the Web and P2P networks; monitoring "cyber communities, including those for suicide"; and designating "cyber clean schools" where cyberethics will be taught.

In Australia, the Labor Party is talking about tougher regulations to protect online kids, Australian IT reports. Under such regs, all ISPs "would be forced to block hard-core pornography reaching home computers.... A confidential paper from the left-wing think tank the Australia Institute, which is now being considered by the Opposition Leader's office, proposes that ISPs install compulsory filtering programs so only adults who can verify their age could view X-rated material." This activity follows the launch of Cleanfeed in the UK, filtering technology used by that country's largest ISP, BT, to block child porn from all of its household customers (see VNUNET). Fueling the debate over tougher measures in Oz was the release of a study there which found that "pornography is good for people," Australian IT reports in a separate article.