Thursday, July 7th, 2016 (1:36 pm) - Score 3,502

Sky Broadband has today followed up last year’s promise (here) by becoming the first major ISP in the United Kingdom enable network-level filtering by default for all new subscribers when they sign-up (i.e. Parental Controls that block access to “adult” websites).

Until now all of the big ISPs have offered customers an “enforced” choice of whether or not to enable censorship when they sign-up, which comes pre-ticked as “Yes” (i.e. to disable it you simply un-tick the box). A list of various categories is then offered for censorship (e.g. self-harm, social networking [Facebook], porn, dating, sex education etc.), which is usually followed by the ability to set an age restriction and or access periods for different times of day.

This semi-voluntary approach is seen as providing a good balance between wider concerns about excessive censorship and the need to give subscribers, particularly parents, an easy ability to control the content that their children can access online.

However the Government have been calling for such censorship to be enabled by default and they’re even considering a legislative change in order to get around a potential conflict with the EU’s new Net Neutrality rules (here), although Brexit may well solve that one. Today Sky has become the first to grant their wish, but they probably won’t be the last.

But Sky’s approach isn’t one of a dumb filter and you can still switch it off. The first time someone tries to access a filtered website, the account holder will instead be invited to amend the settings or turn it off altogether. As a result Sky can offer safe surfing, while still giving account holders the flexibility to choose the settings most appropriate for their households.

Lyssa McGowan, Sky’s Brand Director for Comms Product, said: “Our experience has shown that this “Default On”, or as we call it “Auto On”, approach leads to much greater use of filtering. Last year, we adopted “Auto On” with some of our existing customers which we found delivered much higher engagement and usage of Sky Broadband Shield. Around two thirds of customers we rolled it out to have continued to make use of the software. This is much higher than anyone else in the industry using other approaches. Customers are typically just asked whether they want to switch on filtering when they activate their broadband. It means take up rates are between only 5 and 10% because customers ignore the choice put in front of them or automatically click no without considering the implications. This is why we decided to make “Auto On” standard practice for all our new Sky Broadband customers including our soon to be launched new NOW TV Combo service. Furthermore over the coming months we will be contacting millions more Sky Broadband customers who haven’t yet made a decision about Sky Broadband Shield. If they don’t respond, we will switch it on for them and invite them to amend or switch it off themselves.”

Obviously if you force censorship upon your customers then of course it will improve take-up, although we’d be interested to see what evidence Sky has created to prove that their initial take-up rates were low because, as they claim, customers either “ignore the choice put in front of them” or “automatically click no without considering the implications.”

Mind you, network level censorship is never a complete solution or a substitute for good parental guidance, not least because such filters don’t actually prevent access to adult content (i.e. it’s very easy to circumvent). On top of that they can also hamper access to perfectly legitimate websites (i.e. due to either mis-categorisation or filtering errors, such as stopping access to help sites for victims of self-harm).

Sadly websites that find themselves being unfairly blocked often won’t find out about it unless a visitor informs them and in the meantime they could suffer a loss of business. Sky also has a long history of filtering errors, which have disrupted some perfectly safe websites (e.g. here, here and here).