Google rejects Stephen Conroy’s suggestion of content filter deal

Talks between internet giant Google and communications minister Stephen Conroy regarding the censorship of content to be banned under the proposed mandatory filtering system may have hit a roadblock, with the company saying the Government’s demands are too broad.

The incident comes after the company has announced plans to abandon its Chinese operators if it can find no way of operating its searching services within Chinese law.

Conroy revealed in a Senate Estimates Committee earlier this week that he had been speaking with Google regarding the censorship of content that would be “refused classification”.

But Google has hit back at Conroy’s comments, saying it would not necessarily enter into a censorship scheme voluntarily.

Google Australia head of policy Iarla Flynn said in a statement the company questions the Government’s proposal to block content that is refused classification.

“YouTube has clear policies about what content is not allowed, for example hate speech and pornography and we enforce these, but we can’t give any assurance that we would voluntarily remove all Refused Classification (RC) content from YouTube.”

“The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information. RC includes the grey realms of material instructing in any crime from graffiti to politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia and exposing these topics to public debate is vital for democracy.”

But Flynn said the company would always examine valid legal requests. “Like all law-abiding companies, YouTube complies with the laws in the countries in which we operate. When we receive a valid legal request like a court order to remove content alleged to violate local laws, we first check that the request meets both the letter and spirit of the law, and we will seek to narrow it if the request is overly broad.”

During the committee hearing, Conroy said the company was “probably the world’s leading deep packet filterer, unbeknownst to most people”.

“We are in discussions with companies like Google over this issue and they’re ongoing,” he said. “[Google] are experts at deep packet filtering. They’re probably the world’s leading deep packet filterer, unbeknownst to most people…They have experience in blocking material in other countries at the behest of Governments, including China, Thailand and a number of other countries.”

But Flynn also addressed Conroy’s comparison of Australian censorship plans to the recent decision by Google to abandon its censorship practices in China.

“We have a bias in favour of freedom of expression in everything we do. We’re also committed to complying with relevant laws, regulations and policies of the countries where we operate and we are transparent about this. We don’t believe that comparisons between how Australia and China deal with access to information are helpful or relevant.”

Google shot down Conroy’s comment regarding deep packet filtering, with Flynn saying “Google does not use deep packet inspection”.

It is understood Conroy is working with Google to block the content, rather than rely on the proposed filter to stop viewing of the censored material.

If the filter were to block YouTube videos it would have a fairly obvious impact on performance, as specified in the Government’s official report on the filter released last year. But if Google blocks the videos using its own infrastructure then it is more likely no dramatic loss of speed would be detected by average users.

The Government intends to introduce legislation for the mandatory filter within the next 12 months.