IWF has also strong-armed Newshosting into blocking many newsgroups because they feel "offended" by the contents.

Prudes.

content censorship.. plain and simple.. and illegal under UK freedom of access to information laws.

here we go.. big brother state by private business.. but instigated by government.

do the words "told you so" ring any bells?

I am a BT broadband customer, living in the UK and I still have access to TPB and can download from it :S

if you want to share you can. just use google if BT wants to be stupid and lose there precious profits, let them!

this is a good thing.
it's a voluntary code, which you can opt out of by ringing up BT and saying I wish to opt out.

it achieves two major goals:

1. When you buy a mobile for your 12 year old it stops them from stumbling into donkey porn (stumbling, as in by accident).

2. A voluntary code makes it much much harder for laws to be introduced. Why would you need a law if the industry does it themselves?* it allows the agencies to stand up in court and say "we took reasonable measures so go after the pirates themselves rather than trying to force us to do something the majority of our users don't want".


*this does of course mean it can be abused. For example there was an awful lot of "self regulation" in the US banking system. And that didn't end too well.

It does not help in court...the response would be "It clearly was not enough".

Is this provider in China or something?

A little censorship tends to grow.
Who decides what is "Criminal Skills"?

What is voluntary now will be mandatory soon.