recent decision by MNHQ

Vodafone is doing it using Bluecoat kit as noted above. Bluecoat uses site ratings that it investigates itself albeit partly based on user reports. You, as the network provider, then pick which of the various ratings to allow or disallow. You also choose to do a blanket allow or disallow for any sites that Bluecoat hasn't got round to rating. As I noted above, Vodafone's Bluecoat system would block grown-up, non-porn sites such as lovehoney and b3ta. But it would apparently allow 4chan(!)

I've used Bluecoat kit in a business context and it tends to rather unreliable in its definitions of what is acceptable and what isn't. Its basic lists are right at least 90% of the time but it is also easily circumventable. The same issues apply to all ISP-level filtering systems.

There are ways of making it harder to circumvent but those ways also run the risk of blocking lots of other legitimate network services. Eg, one of the ways we set up to avoid Bluecoat being circumvented (by blocking traffic that looked like a VPN) also happened to block Skype from working.

That was workable in a business environment as we had strict acceptable-use clauses and a user base who didn't have legitimate needs to access anything other than business sites. We also had a sizeable tech team to work on them. But those kinds of issues aren't appropriate in a home context.

I think they need to allow themselves more freedom to campaign in their own name. Mumsnet Limited or whatever. Claiming to be speaking for a usership isn't working.

What I'm really concerned about is, as far as I was aware, MN usually post to find out the general consensus before taking on a campaign and go with the majority. The only thread I saw on it, doesn't support this.

That wd be very helpful Kaloki. As Lenin says, if this idea isn't a good one then we need to know what (if anything) will work. I guess the ultimate solution will be multiple? Belts, braces, buckles, and bootstraps?

Got an absolute shit ton to do today (including finding out if one of my pets survive having their tumour removed) but I may try and write up a summary of the points against this for those who aren't too great with tech later. I'll also try and write up about the alternatives.

There are more holes in this idea than in fishnets.

Not sure about Vodafone, but 3 had/have something similar in place, I had to opt in (similar to this plan it was treated very much as, "so you want to look at porn do you?")

Want to know what I was attempting to look at? An eating disorder support site.

Lenin, Vodafone offers opt-out content filtering for under 18s. They claim to exclude all adult sites as well as gambling sites. It's far from perfect but it's good enough for the purpose.

DS has a Vodafone mobile and he knows that if I catch him accessing dodgy stuff then Internet connectivity on his phone will be disabled entirely.

I'm less bothered by content filtering on mobiles than that on home broadband though. If my DS tries to get to a particular site on his mobile and it's erroneously blocked then, if he really wants to get to it, he'll try from home. At that point I can make sure that the site is appropriate for him (or not, as the case may be). And I can then update our home PC's filtering to include/exclude that site as appropriate. An ISP-level filter won't be able to offer that kind of flexibility.

You're absolutely right maryz. The Internet is global and policing it to make sure that porn sites can only appear with a .xxx TLD would be effectively impossible.

"should we really be backing it at all"

"We" aren't backing it. The limited company that owns the software we use to talk is backing it.

It is astonishing that MNHQ are, partly for genuinely benevolent reasons and partly to publicise/monetise their brand, routinely speaking for the talkboard. I know that the often say in interviews etc that there is never a consensus on MN. But time and again they act as spokespeople, "summing up the sense of the meeting" (that's the phrase used to describe the PM's power in Cabinet govt btw) on the basis of a reading of the site that is necessarily filtered by their PR objectives. They rarely make more than a flawed chat-based gesture at consultation. It is just staggeringly cavalier.

The big problem with the .xxx top-level domain is that for it to be of any real use it would a) need to be taken up by the whole world, b) you'd have to persuade a significant majority of the porn-hosting sites to move to it, and c) you'd need a global consensus on what constitutes porn. It's a technically elegant idea but the politics are awful.

If only a small proportion of porn sites moved to .xxx and were then automatically blocked, they'd soon notice that their .com competitors were becoming more popular whereas their own traffic would nose-dive. So they'd then just move back to their original addresses and .xxx would be empty.

And getting a global consensus of what kind of sites should be in .xxx would be frighteningly hard. How can you get a common view of what is, and is not, porn between (say) the USA, Holland, Saudi Arabia and Japan?

ahh x posts with marzy about bluetooth ec

I think part of the problem is that Porn isn't just available on "Porn websites" - it's every where.

So you make all the big commerical porn sites xxx domain - but then you're still left with millions of websites that arent' "ddicated" porn sites that are still available.

Google safe search works for me in one direction (I've only eve seen one dodgy image on "moderate"). But then I've had to take the safe search totally off (not pleasant ) to find pictures which by all accounts I would deem as "moderate" or "safe".

I'm not sure if child A has managed to access pornagraphic images/material on their phone there is any way of stopping it being passed around. I'd hazard a good guess that picture messaging and bluetooth have absolutely no connection to the ISP's from where it was downloaded.