Google appears to be preparing to take a stand agaist the Australian Government’s decision to slow down internet access for Australians in order to block access to a few innocent sites accidentally added to the blacklist (those intentionally blacklisted will of course be easily able to bypass the filter).
ps. the news article may or may not be an April Fool’s joke but Google is definitely opposed to the introduction of the filter - as any sensible person who understands internet technology is (of course everyone is also opposed to the sorts of sites that the filter is supposed to block being on the internet at all and wouldn’t be opposed to the filter if it had the slightest chance that it could actually work).
I love these April fools day jokes… there’s nothing funnier than watching people get hyped up over something to realise they’ve been “rick-rolled” in some form.
Apart from the fact that it hasn’t been implemented yet there will be no problem for anyone getting around it (apart from those owners of innocent sitres blacklisted by mistake).
Those whose sites are legitimately blocked will just provide alternative paths to the data and when those alternatives get blacklisted will just add more alternatives. Since it will take a lot longer to blacklist a new site than it will to move locations those sites will only suffer a minor inconvenience as a result of the filter.
The inconvenience to ALL Australian internet users caused by the slow down of processing due to the filter will be much greater per person. Obviously the intent of the Government is to punish people for connecting to the internet at all since that is where the biggest impact will be.
