I thought the NZ government had gone pretty far down the nutso legislation road with our incompetent Copyright protection laws, but this takes the cake. Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day.
The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.
Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.
The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.
Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.
The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.
Some questions
- Is there now a global compact among nations now to co-ordinate their blacklists? What business does Australia have blacklisting denmarks' blacklist/ What POSSIBLE difference could it make?
- Anti-abortionists may be misinformed and some advocate violence against women who have abortions and their practitioners. Here's the news, rational people want to know who these advocates are. Hiding them is the worst possible disservice to informed debate.
- Big one. How in hell am I suppsoed to know whether i am linking to a banned website if I can't LOOK IT UP. Oh wait, some bureacratic snoop will TELL me.
- Does publishing the URL of the banned site constitute LINKING to it? don't ask, tese bunnies wont know what you are talking about.
Rule 1.
NEVER permit bureaucrats to make decisions about our freedoms.
Strange legislation. Is it now in force ?
Posted by: Jon Husband | March 18, 2009 at 04:39 AM
Its in beta, some ISPs are taking part, none of the big ones.
Posted by: Earl Mardle | March 18, 2009 at 03:35 PM
This is a really odd piece of legislation. Either the bureaucrats have not thought this thing through, or they are trying to shut down news and commentary on the Internet. One says incompetence, the other says nefarious. I usually go with incompetence with these people, but you never know. I hope none of our legislators in Oregon see this idea. They will pass a law like this in a heartbeat.
Posted by: nomad496 | March 22, 2009 at 03:04 AM
Latest;
Shelved.
Good
Posted by: Earl Mardle | March 24, 2009 at 12:38 PM