(Horrific and according to what evidence there is and most of the experts extremely damaging.)

I thought it boiled down to it being unworkable? Re. defining porn - we define all sorts of things when it comes to children - we classify dvds, we have watersheds etc etc. No one's saying ban porn - we're saying there is some porn that shouldn't be stumble-able across. Maybe the bar should be set at very hardcore porn. Quite frankly that would something. Some of the stuff that is easily accessible to young children quite by chance is horrific.

No that's not quite right - the idea is that the default for all is that pornography is off - you need to actively turn it on to view it. So the likelihood is that it will be off for your neighbour's child too. The problem now is that you actively have to understand and set controls and even if you do, there is every likelihood that your neighbour will not have.

Switching the default to off is an idea that has been supported on MN boards when it's been discussed in the passed. The objections voiced here are about the feasibility/practicality of achieving the desired aim, rather than the aim itself.

And, of course, if it's impractical, that's a very good reason for not trying to do it. The people in the know who we've spoken to - most notably the folks at Childnet and other child protection agencies who've been monitoring this and talking to the phone companies about it for some time - seem to think it is feasible. We obviously don't know (we're not experts) and obviously there's some scepticism from techy types here.

There is a meeting with the relevant government ministers - Ed Vaizey and Tim Loughton- the ISPs, the NSPCC, the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety on Monday. We're going along too. We'll get a very good sense there I think of what the ISPs think about this and whether it is or isn't feasible and we'll, of course, report back.

Thanks for all your input.

Thanks very much for your comments, and sorry it?s taken us a little while to respond.

Our over-arching aim is to address the concerns that Mumsnetters have repeatedly expressed about the ease with which children can access pornographic material on the internet, intentionally or otherwise. In trying to do that we will, of course, take on board the comments posted here.

What we can say is that other experts we've consulted on this do seem to think that filtering is a feasible option, and that a combination of continually-improving filtering techniques would provide a much more accurate filter than was previously possible (so no blocking "chicken breast recipes", for example).

It?s worth bearing in mind that while no system is infallible, such technology is already in use for filtering out images of child abuse, and as some posters have pointed out, it?s also the default setting for some mobile providers.

It's true there are still technical challenges to be overcome, and that there will always be scope for a determined child to circumvent a network filter, but we think this would be an effective way to prevent children from inadvertently stumbling across pornographic material, or accessing it via a casual search.

If a default filter option turns out to be unachievable, then of course we'll rethink. We?re having ongoing conversations with campaign groups, policy bods and others on this issue, and we're attending a roundtable with the ISPs next week. We'll have a better idea then what the industry perceive the challenges to be, and whether they are proposing effective alternatives.

We?ll keep you updated, and of course do please continue to let us know what you think.

Just a quick post to let you know that we have seen this and will be back later with our thoughts.