2013-12-21

The perve list

One of the concerns that people have, quite sensibly, is that the new blocks imposed by many ISPs need specific requests to remove the blocks.

So, in order to have an unfiltered internet connection, you have to tell them you want the blocks removed. This is saying you want to access porn, or so it may seem. Indeed, some of the proposed legislation actually specified wording which meant that you specifically asked to access adult material. So, the ISPs now have a perve list. Understandably, people do not want to go on such a list.

As long as ISPs like A&A are allowed to operate without filtering, and people can choose such ISPs, we can avoid this.

Interestingly, when we did have a chat with ISPA members and some MPs a while ago, the MPs were suggesting that a choice not to offer filters would lose an ISP business, and several of us said that the opposite was true - that people find us out because we offer a clean, uncensored, internet service.

Well, tweets like this do kind of support our views on this.


17 comments:

  1. I would love to have read this but because it contains the words 'adult material' and 'perve' and contains an image of a semi decent female , I am unable to comment because this page is now filtered....

    ReplyDelete
  2. your policy retains customers too, I was thinking of moving but not now

    ReplyDelete
  3. From the Daily Mail own readership estimate, it reach 5.1m readers on Saturday (its best day), so that leaves about 45m above 15yo that might be tempted by an unfiltered connection.....
    But of course we don't want you to become too much of a major player and be subject to the mandatory voluntary censorship

    ReplyDelete
  4. I do dislike the euphemism "Adult material". Adult material would be cars, wine, beer and golf.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's one of the many problems: at least one operator considered it to include political content, perhaps a side-effect of buying in Chinese censorware.

      I was at a fellow A&A customer's home for lunch today, talking to a TalkTalk filtering victim (apparently, the Wordpress plugin site she was visiting is "unsuitable"). She's tied in to a contract with them until March, after which hopefully A&A will be getting another customer. The lack of filtering is indeed a large part of A&A's appeal, along with the commitment to quality and performance - I was actually with another unfiltered ISP before moving, but RevK's stronger opposition to the filtering nonsense helped win me over.

      Delete
    2. Thanks. We try to be straight up and honest.

      Delete
    3. "Adult material" usually means material of interest to tweenage boys.

      Delete
  5. Perhaps those of us who want to retain our freedoms, perves indeed, could make ourselves known to the MPs. An e-petition on the government' website perhaps?

    ReplyDelete
  6. My '3' mobile broadband is now filtered, despite it being an existing contract and it claims has the adult filters turned off when I go into the account settings. So even though I asked to be added to the perve list (I turned them off again), they're still on. That can't be right surely? This filter is supposed to be voluntary (yes I know how thin the veneer on that is).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you have any (SFW) examples of what exactly is filtered on this?

      Delete
    2. Are you sure? A quick check on piratebay.se and youporn.com showed no filters.

      (On the 3internet APN - three.co.uk has always been a walled garden)

      Delete
    3. I have the three.co.uk APN set, but that's the automatic value set by the SIM or the network. I never knew I was supposed to change it, plus as I understand it if the APN is wrong abroad you get nothing. I don't want to be stuck abroad unable to find out what change it back to. And I know some of these sites didn't used to be blocked, the walled garden must have changed too.

      Delete
    4. Well that's weird, everything is accessible today even with the default APN of three.co.uk, including the examples Tony Hoyle gave above.

      Delete
    5. You don't have to change the APN, but I've found three.co.uk randomly blocks things like IRC and used to be quite restrictive in the websites it'd let you view (blocking things like blogs for no apparent reason) - although that may have changed - so I always switch to 3internet out of reflex these days.

      Delete
  7. Oo eck "semi decent female" eh? Almost a compliment!!! Lol

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated purely to filter out obvious spam, but it means they may not show immediately.

Hot tubbing...

I have a hot tub, it came with the house over 3 years ago. Managing a hot tub is complicated, and expensive. The expensive part is the power...