TalkTalk announces further extension to its HomeSafe product to control adult content.
TalkTalk, one of the top 4 UK broadband providers announced this week that it was going to extend the reach of its HomeSafe product to all its customers to block pornographic content to all devices entering the home. It will do this at source i.e. on a filter applied to all HTTP requests and the rules will be set by a categorisation database applied in the network for adult sites. The way TalkTalk has implemented this has been up for discussion these last 18 months and has lead to the tag ‘StalkTalk’ as sites are categorised post visit and not externally via an independent source such as Symantec or McAfee which is the case in other networks privately and outside the UK. A similar approach is also implemented in the UK mobile networks via the likes of Symantec at a higher level with proof of age and identity required although this is far from fool proof.
The industry can criticise TalkTalk all they want but TT are doing something to protect the children on their network and even giving adults a choice of what they want to see accidentally or on purpose. If you want to view Porn then you leave the setting open; if you don’t you can just request an adult block and it will be done once. This differs from the approach that the other Service Providers are taking i.e. Virgin Media, BT and Sky. They are all moving forward with a device blocking approach but this is easy to circumvent particularly for smart kids and we know just how smart some of those kids are. It does not take long for the TweetMachine to spread received wisdom of how to jailbreak the latest barrier.
The best way to do this is in the network. Do it once and do it for all devices. Parents are in the main complacent and at worst uneducated in the ways of the technology in their homes and devices in their children’s hands. So make the service a) easy to use and b)freely available . TalkTalk say they are enjoying better customer retention since they launched HomeSafe. The rest of the industry seems to be running scared of implementing global controls for their customer’s benefit. Why?? Some might argue they did not see any benefit or an active business case. Now the government are taking a more proactive approach to content on the internet and the most high profile case of late has been Pirate Bay. Funny how the financial muscle of the media industry can get attention at high levels and yet the sexualisation of our children is second on the agenda… Money talks!
Rest assured there are some changes coming to the way we consume content from the internet, it has been too long coming and maybe is too late for the kids growing up last 10 years – however, let’s hope that the ability to control our own environment in a spirit of freedom and common sense prevails.
