Australian ISPs will Have to Filter Web Content

Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy says Australisan Internet Service Providers will be required to provide filtering of pornography and violent Web sites as the default option for schools and consumers. Senator Conroy says anyone wanting uncensored access to the internet will have to opt out of the service.

Traffic Shaping, Not Blocking

Users of RCN broadband access services are complaining about blocking of BitTorrent connections. That seems unlikely, though traffic shaping seems certain. RCN has in the past noted that more than 90 percent of upstream traffic was composed of P2P streams. And since upstream bandwidth is the key resource constraint, RCN traffic shaping was not unexpected. When users are sharing a scarce resource, some "rationing" is simply fairness.

Business Model Juxtaposition

There are multiple reports from Twitter users on T-Mobile networks that Twitter streams are being interrupted. Separately, photographer Lane Hartwell has taken 5,000 images formerly available on Flickr out of public view. What's the resemblence?

Hartwell objects to images being used on the Web without credit or compensation. "I don't want people just taking my stuff and saying, 'We're going to redistribute this to the masses," she says. She wants to protect her business model, in other words.

Assuming T-Mobile actually is blocking Twitter posts, one would assume there is a similar motivation: to protect the business model.

"It is stealing," Hartwell says of the unauthorized use of her photo in a YouTube video. "I'm not a charity. This is my living."

Likewise, T-Mobile seems to be taking the position that its "short code" service requires a commercial relationship with T-Mobile.

“Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and some services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming," T-Mobile is reported to have replied to a complaint about the apparent Twitter blocking.

"We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to service, cancel or suspend service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion,” T-Mobile reportedly has said.

The point is that use of some resources occasionally is a direct assault on some individual's, or some enterprises's, business model, and those entities sometimes take steps to protect their business models.

The observation is that as all content, communications and information moves to IP delivery, these sorts of disputes are bound to multiply.