Australia's Blacklisted Hyperlinks to Cost Webmasters $11,000 a Day

According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), this and other blacklisted hyperlinks will cost webmasters $11,000 a day if published on a website. The hefty fine applies to any site containing a banned URL, which was demonstrated last week when the AMA threatened the host of an online broadband disccusion forum after a user posted a link to a banned anti-abortion website.

According to The Syndney Morning Herald, the ACMA's blacklist doesn't significantly impact web browsing by Australians, but that could change if the Federal Government implements its mandatory internet filtering censorship plan.

The newest site added to the ACMA's blacklist includes Wikileaks, who drew the ACMA's ire after it published a leaked document containing Denmark's lists of banned websites. Wikileaks had also posted Thailand's censorship, noting that both lists have expanded from child porn to other material including political discussions.

"We note that, not only do these incidents show that the ACMA censors are more than willing to interpret their broad guidelines to include a discussion forum and document repository, it is demonstrably inevitable that the Government's own list is bound to be exposed itself at some point in the future," Electronic Frontiers Australia said. "The Government would serve the country well by sparing themselves, and us, this embarrassment."

The Australian Government's internet censorship trials are due to begin shortly, however none of the major ISPs have been invited to participate. O_o

(Image Credit: mikeduran.com)