Greedy ISPs kept from filtering trial

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said that the reason some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) hadn't been chosen in the first round of ISP filtering was that they had greedily tried to get the department to pay for upgrades to their own equipment.

"Some of them, cheaply, took the opportunity to try and get the Commonwealth to fund an upgrade in their own equipment," he said, speaking at the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG) conference. "Some of them came to us and said look, we can do this no problem, zero dollar costs. So obviously we were able to start with them."

The million dollar costs which some parties had brought to the table were veiled attempts to try and get the government to upgrade their boxes, Conroy said

"There were a few try-ons in the process, but we had to work our way through it," he said.

That was the reason the first six ISPs were chosen, Conroy said. "It was actually a function of the applications which came in. No great conspiracy theory. We're still actively engaged in conversation with a number of applicants," he assured Blue Coat's country manager Wayne Neich who had brought up the subject.

Neich had said that his company had reached no understanding or insight as to why the six companies had been chosen, a concern after his company had invested a significant amount in the ISP filtering process.

Conroy also stuck the boot into those who were proclaiming the filter as the Australian equivalent to the Great Wall of China, saying that he only wanted to remove "refuse classification (RC) material" - material that includes child sexual abuse imagery; bestiality; sexual violence; detailed instructions in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.