Australia: A court proceeding over the proposed Internet filter to block people from accessing BitTorrent sites has been postponed, according to a local report.
A trial was postponed due to unnamed reason, but according to a source, this will likely to start in January next year.
The “great firewall of Australia”, as dubbed by some local reporters, has been to various controversies because of the legal issues associated to blocking BitTorrent sites.
Some critics suggested that the Internet filter may not be overall beneficial for web users because the Internet traffic may be affected, slowing down the computer networks and affecting the transfer of contents between servers and computer units.
According to senate member and former Shadow Minister of Defense Nick Minchin, the filtering of the Internet system will “drastically slow down this electronic medium of communication.”
The country’s largest Internet Service Provider iiNet said that the government’s plan of sanitizing the Internet may not be viable and overall beneficial because of the irregularities associated with the proposed plan, adding that despite the loopholes of Internet filtering, the company is still trying to participate in the court proceeding.
iiNet chief Michael Malone said that the government’s scheme may prove not to be favorable to most people since the Internet traffic’s performance will be affected, saying that Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy, who was the staunch advocated of Internet filtering plan, as the country’s “worst communication minister in fifteen years after the Internet was introduced.”
Meanwhile, supporters of the proposed Internet filter said that they are “protecting not just the interest of movie and music industry but also the welfare of minors who can have access to violent and sexually explicit contents found in some BitTorrent sites.”