Saturday 28 August 2010

Online Stalking: it's not the ISPs Fault.

The BBC is running an article about how ISPs are 'thwarting' a crackdown on online stalking. Apparently, they should not only deliver Internet connectivity (their job), they should also police it (not their job). It's like saying that the makers of paper should be responsible for what's written on it, or that the makers of envelopes should be responsible for what's delivered in them.

Of course, what's barely mentioned is that you should be very careful about personal details that you post online. Do NOT post details of your current location, places where you can often be found, your home address, your phone number, etc. Doing so is just asking for trouble, and blaming the ISP—even when social networking sites (still not the ISP) encourage you to yield such information—is equivalent to blaming manufacturers of junk food for forcing you to eat rubbish by making appealing adverts.

The last thing we want is ISPs policing Internet access according to a private set of rules formed by a mob committee. I'm even wary of the Law of the Land applying to the delivery of content (the hosting is another matter). It's a slippery slope when your government gets used to being able to filter content that it finds objectionable.

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