1. When you sign up to an ISP, they explicitly ask if you want a filter. 2. Asking your ISP to stop filtering is simple, easy, and immediate.

Seriously. This is a non issue.

Several cellphones have come with filtering enabled by default for years and years. It's not a big deal, you just call them up and say "Yeah when I bought this phone, I wanted to use the internet. So disable your crappy little filter, and we'll say no more about it"

Everything I'm reading at the moment suggest that this is not the case in the UK. Apparently as of about now, ISPs are turning on filtering by default without asking, and you must explicitly contact them to get it turned off. People I know who use O2 are, without being asked or contacted, finding that sites are getting blocked.

Some ISPs are, apparently, asking for explicit confirmation with a phrase such as "So you are requesting access to sites that carry pornographical material", and if you want to access anything that the Government has decided to block, you must reply "Yes."

I have no doubt that lists of people who have opted-out will, at some point, be leaked.

When signing up for fixed line broadband with any of the biggest ISPs you have to make a choice between filtered and unfiltered. As the GP said, mobile broadband has filtering enabled by default and has done for years.

Source: Am in the UK & have opted out of filtering. All fixed line ISPs allow toggling the filter bias their online control panel, or by clicking a button when signing up online. Mobile ISPs vary - O2 mobile require you give your card details.

Wow.

Edit: To put it in context, this was in response to someone suggesting I re-read my last sentence and decide if I'm a sane person or a conspiracy nut.

These days, "Sane person vs. Conspiracy nut" is a false dichotomy.

Anybody who says something like that these days hasn't been paying attention.

The thought comes to mind: why isn't filtering an add-on that costs extra? "You want kid- and church-safe internet access? Order our CleanStream product."

Some ISPs (talk talk) already offered it for free butit was opt in. Strong arming other ISPs into it and making it opt in was done because politics.

Making it Opt out, you mean.

Other way around: opting out will cost extra.

Incomplete sentences confuse me. Of course "pay for opt-out" is kind of how it is now, since those who opt out will still have to subsidize the support burden of filtering.

What you have there is a list of people that want to look at adult material… Nobody should want to be on this list because it's completely open for abuse. As these filters and 'opt-out' lists become more fine-grained it becomes more of a problem…