Concerning developments Down Under
Every day, around the world, an increasing number of governments are restricting access to information online. Google faces these challenges in countries as varied as Germany, Turkey, and the People's Republic of China. And now we find ourselves facing a new threat in Australia, where the government has proposed forcing Internet Service Providers - the companies that connect users to the Internet - to filter controversial content.
While no one disagrees that illegal content - such as child pornography - must be filtered, the proposed measure in Australia threatens to go too far and could end up stifling debate on important public issues.
The power of the Internet is its free flow of information. So when a government takes the unusual, and potentially dangerous, step of considering filtering legal content, we should all take notice and freely express our concerns. Visit Google's Australia blog to read more about the proposed measure.