ISOC-AU will play a role in helpingto define the Internet and make it responsive to people's needs, he said. Huston expects about 10,000 of Australia's Internet users to join the society. The proposed mix of ratings, classification, user control, public reporting, and law enforcement crackdown on illegal material on the Internet in Britain is unique in that it neither creates new laws nor implements a broad technological block. The Netherlands and Belgium have set up hotlines and reporting points on the Web for complaints about child pornography online. The French parliament passed a law in June setting up a central regulatory agency to rate content.
China requires all ISPs and Internet users to register with the authorities.
In early September, the ICTF ordered German ISPs to block access to the Dutch Web site xs4all, which holds 3,100 personal and commercial home pages including that of Radikal, a left-wing political magazine which is banned in Germany. German and Australian ministers have suggested that international standards are needed to prevent Net users from circumventing local rules. Singapore requires all ISPs to funnel their traffic through government-controlled proxy servers. Vietnam and Saudi Arabia control access via a single Internet gateway. Other countries interested in censoring the Net include Cuba, Canada, Kuwait, and Taiwan.