thinkbroadband

TalkTalk research suggests almost 8 out of 10 reject default filtering
Thursday 06 September 2012 09:30:21 by
Andrew Ferguson

TalkTalk has been running an Active Choice system for six months now, their
system operates at the network level and allows customers to decide whether to
activate the controls.

To date of new customers to their service, one in three are choosing to
activate the HomeSafe parental controls (broadly in line with percentage of
households that have children). Previous releases by TalkTalk on the controls have highlighted that it is not
pornography that appears at the top of the blocked list, but sites related to
suicide and self-harm.

With the Governments own consultation into parental controls and whether to
implement one of several options that providers will be required to offer
closing today, TalkTalk has carried out its own survey in conjunction with
YouGov of 2010 adults.

37% of UK adults with children in the household think that active choice –
where customers are asked when they sign up to broadband if they want their
internet to be filtered or not – is the system that should be applied as
standard to best protect children online.

A further 30% said their internet service should only be filtered if they
ask for it.

Just 22% thought that default filtering of harmful content, such as
pornography, is the best system, where the internet is filtered unless they ask
for it not to be. That means that close to 80% of parents surveyed rejected
default filtering.

Summary of results from TalkTalk survey

Looking at the results, it seems that of the parents surveyed only 22%
believe that default filtering of harmful content is the best system to
implement. Which is a surprisingly low figure, and suggests that if the
Government were to force a default filtering network based filtering on all
Internet connections it would be highly unpopular.

The four largest broadband providers have agreed to offer an Active Choice
system, to date TalkTalk is the only one with an active system, and likely to
be the only one with a network based filter.