UK ISPs Start Hijacking Website Browsing to Push Censorship Filters

As expected all of the United Kingdom’s largest broadband ISPs are now starting to interrupt the website browsing sessions of their existing customers in order to offer them an enforce option about whether or not to enable their network-level filtering (Parental Control) services, which block websites that are deemed to contain “adult content” and is a Government requirement.

The filtering system, which is still incredibly easy for a child to circumvent (there’s nothing ISPs can do about that), was first introduced to new customers during the ordering process at the end of last year and allows parents to enable blocking of “adult websites” at the network level (i.e. it applies to any computers or devices that connect to your home broadband service).

At the time ISPs also pledged to the Government that their existing customers would be presented with a similar choice by the end of 2014 and thus those who have yet to make a decision about the filtering must now decide via way of having their website browsing session automatically hijacked, which could easily cause confusion. Indeed malware (malicious software) sometimes uses a similar approach and the URL’s used might thus appear suspicious (e.g. websafe.virginmedia.com as opposed to the greater credibility of just using virginmedia.com).

The “enforced” nature of the choice also means that subscribers are sometimes unable to continue browsing unless they pick from one of the options. However Sky Broadband has taken a different approach with Sky Shield and said that they wouldn’t stop customers from browsing, although they also warned that those who didn’t decide when prompted might find the filtering enabled by default “from some point next year“.

A spokesperson for BT told Wired:

“If customers do not make a decision, they are unable to continue browsing. The message will remain until the customer makes a decision.”

Customers who pick “No” should not see the message again, although there will always be the option to enable the service directly if required. Meanwhile those who choose “Yes” are then likely to be faced with a list of blocking categories, which can include everything from Pornography to the more questionable and generic areas like ‘Social Networking’ (e.g. Facebook, Twitter.. you know, because freedom of speech, we can’t have any of that ‘adult’ stuff), ‘Games’, ‘Media Streaming’ and ‘Fashion and Beauty’ etc.

But consumers should be careful because making the filtering too broad can also disrupt normal Internet access to websites that do not break any laws and which will often also contain useful content. Many examples exist of poor categorisation resulting in websites for health care services, child support, help for victims of self-harm and sex education also being restricted.

It’s worth pointing out that this will be less of an issue for TalkTalk, which has been operating a similar HomeSafe filtering service for many years longer than their rivals. Instead of hijacking the browsing session TalkTalk offers the option via their My Accounts page and thus nearly all of their customers have already made the decision, with the majority choosing not to filter.