Google, which has recently been involved in a censorship spat with China, has been one of the filtering policy's harshest critics. It has identified a range of politically sensitive and innocuous material, such as sexual health discussions and discussions on euthanasia, which could be blocked by the filters. Last week, it said it had held discussions with users and parents around Australia and "the strong view from parents was that the government's proposal goes too far and would take away their freedom of choice around what information they and their children can access". Google also said implementing mandatory filtering across Australia's millions of internet users could "negatively impact user access speeds", while filtering material from high-volume sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter "appears not to be technologically possible as it would have such a serious impact on internet access". "We have a number of other concerns, including that filtering may give a false sense of security to parents, it could damage Australia's international reputation and it can be easily circumvented," Google wrote. On ABC Radio last night, the majority of callers were opposed to the filters and right before the end of the segment, Senator Conroy attacked Google over its privacy credentials.

"Recently the founders of Google have got themselves into a little bit of trouble because notwithstanding their alleged 'do no evil' policy, they recently created something called Buzz, and there was a reaction, and people said well look aren't you publishing private information?," Senator Conroy said. "[Google CEO Eric] Schmidt said the following: 'If you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place'. This is the founder of Google. He also said recently to Wall Street analysts, 'we love cash', so when people say, shouldn't we just leave it up to the Googles of this world to determine what the filtering policy should be...." Google said today it was surprised to hear Senator Conroy trying to "make this an issue about Google". "This is a debate about freedom of access to information for all Australians, an issue of national importance. Let's focus on that," Google said. Google's Buzz product added social networking features to Gmail but it caused a privacy uproar in February, with users complaining their contacts were being made public without their knowledge and that they had little control over who could follow their updates. Google quickly tweaked the service to allay these concerns.

Google said the Schmidt quote referred to by Senator Conroy had been taken out of context. Furthermore, Senator Conroy incorrectly labelled Schmidt one of the founders of the company, when in fact he joined the company as its CEO in 2001. Opposition communications spokesman Tony Smith said it was Senator Conroy's "default position" to attack anyone that questions his policies. "Google should be able to express their opinion without being attacked by the Minister and having their motives questioned," he said.

Senator Conroy also said he was not aware of the US State Department contacting his office or that of the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, over the internet filters. This contradicts a statement made by a US State Department spokesman yesterday. "Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally," a U.S. State Department spokesman Michael Tran told The Associated Press.

Tran declined to say when or at what level the U.S. State Department raised its concerns with Australia and declined to detail those concerns. "We don't discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials," he added. Senator Conroy argues the he is only attempting to apply the same restrictions placed on the distribution of books, magazines, DVDs and other content to the internet. But critics say this approach fails to consider that the internet is a vastly different, dynamic medium. They say Senator Conroy's proposal is a heavy-handed measure that is easily bypassed by criminals and could restrict access to legal information. Senator Conroy has conceded that greater transparency is needed in terms of how content ends up on the blacklist, but last night he again refused to make the blacklist itself public, saying it would provide people instant access to the banned material.

Whether the internet filtering policy is implemented depends largely on whether the Opposition supports or blocks the legislation. It has said it is waiting to see the government's legislation before stating a final position on the matter. "The Federal Coalition supports sensible and workable measures to protect children from inappropriate online content," said Smith. "However we are yet to be convinced that Labor’s mandatory filtering plans will actually be effective or achieve the best results.”

- with wires