Government Should Withdraw Vague Order On Porn Sites: ISPs

BANGALORE: Even as the government has said Internet service providers were free not to block any of the 857 websites suspected for pornographic content unless they were abusive of children, the industry body of the ISPs said that the directive was "vague and unimplementable".

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has urged the government to withdraw its earlier directive on banning porn sites and the subsequent amendment that the ISPs are "free not to disable any of the 857 URLs."

The letter to the service providers on Tuesday was issued by the Department of Telecom and it sought to clarify the position of an earlier missive, in which a list containing the names of 857 sites was provided with a directive that these be blocked for showing child pornography.

But the ISPAI, which has 50 members, said in its letter that even the so called clarification by the government was "unclear, and was imposing an undue burden" on a matter that was beyond their control to regulate.

"We submit that direction given above is very vague and unimplementable, as ISPs have no way or mechanism to filter out child pornography from URLs and further unlimited sub links of the said URLs in different - different name," said the letter to the telecom secretary.

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