At this stage of the development of on-line services, the CLC does not believe it is appropriate for access providers to be subjected to offences of strict liability in relation to the content of material carried through their services. The CLC recognises that individuals can easily cross the boundaries of these categories.
Access providers are an important source of help for network users.
It is recognised that in practice such distinctions may require careful analysis of the facts of individual cases. The steps most easily taken here may be the blocking of specific Usenet newsgroups. World Wide Web sites are far more fluid than Usenet, and would therefore be more costly and complex to filter at the access provider level. The CLC does not believe that, at this stage, the law should require access to specific Usenet groups or other sites or classes of sites to be blocked by on-line access providers. Indeed, if the structure of sections of this rapidly changing industry were to change in ways that centralised control in the hands of a small number of players, then competition and diversity issues not addressed in the Issues Paper might become important.