As you say, Parental Controls in the OS are already more than good enough for most purposes. Additionally, if you’re using an OS where they’re _not_, then you have the option of enabling this feature on your router / DSL modem — almost any of these have content filtering built-in now. If you’re still too stingy to implement this (keeping in mind that a basic router can cost less than $50) then ISPs should offer it as an opt-in solution, NOT an opt-out like what Labor is proposing.

Households which don’t even have a child should not have to jump through hoops just to use the Internet as it was intended.

This reminds me of that time when Optus decided they would block SMTP to customer’s links without informing them, and required them to opt-out to get the functionality back (once the customer had discovered this — in my case it took a few days to realise the problem was at the other end of the line.) Censorship is more sinister though, as it might not be immediately obvious that you’re being censored, depending on exactly how they implement the response for the browser. If it just returns a 404, it would look like a problem at the other end and emails would be sent to the webmaster asking why bits of their site are down. :-)

http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR070811.html

I’ve used ISP-based filtering in the form of the NSW Department of Education’s abortion of a filter before, and I can tell you now that if Rudd’s filter turns out anything like that it’ll be one big failboat.

Jesus Christ, they need to stop trying to do parents jobs for them.