I have received a number of recent comments (THANK YOU!) asking for clarification and elaboration on my internet filtering/government involvement views. Hopefully this helps to clarify. One of the comments was the following from “Brandon” in response to my post I’m a Better Digital Citizen After Australia:
If you provide such technology to a government how do you reconcile with yourself that your technology could enable such governments to block political ideas or other important forms of communication? Does it not remind you of the old Soviet practice of preventing the free flow of communication?
If your concern is for children accessing inappropriate content, isn’t it best to protect them in the digital world just like we do in the real world: by their parents? Who could possibly have more incentive to protect children than their own parents?
To address the first set of questions, let me first say that I think that we should all be careful of oversimplifications and hasty generalizations of what are extremely complex issues and conditions. In fact, let’s all be very clear – what is ultimately being debated is not whether end users would actually benefit from added protections, but rather who should provide them and their scope. There are significant commercial interests at stake in the context of this discussion—whether identifying a price for this protection, or the ability to leverage the protections to other services. This debate is merely a side note, however, to the reality that end users are better served by having the option of using intelligent network level services that deliver added protection.
The issues raised in Brandon’s second set of questions do appeal to me. To expect a parent (or any user for that matter) at the end of the proverbial pipe to fend for their own in dealing with the infinite number of malicious possibilities is inefficient and self-defeating. I do think parents have more incentive than anyone to protect their children (and even to protect children that aren’t their own if they can). But saying so does not suggest or imply a specific technological solution. Parents should have the option to enjoy any service or application – network or client based – that meets their needs and the needs of their children.
By now, you all know that I am not a proponent of big government. It is impossible to expect governmental bodies to effectively legislate all aspects of a network of networks as complex and diverse as the Internet. And, sometimes, the presence of the control debate itself stifles innovation. When this happens the digital citizenry is left to call on our governments to put end user protection (not content providers or ISP’s) first. This is what I sensed in Australia and, quite honestly, in other areas of the globe.
I imagine that there are still those who think I am advocating an invasion of privacy or an otherwise invasive application of technology. To be clear, I’m against anybody spying. Privacy does not have to be sacrificed in order to adequately protect end users. Please refer to my previous blogs regarding the Windstream Redirection debacle and my views on auto-upgrades and the Omnibox for further technical explanation.
That being said, I hope this has helped. If you have anything more to contribute to this dialogue, please don’t hesitate to send it my way.
.tom
