Free Municipal Wi-Fi Not So Free
Digg.com posting: “What’s the real price you pay for free wi-fi? Censorship. Culver City, California, the first LA municipality to offer the public a free all-access wi-fi, has now added Audible Magic’s CopySense Network Appliance to filter all porn, copyrighted material, and p2p from it’s networks. “We congratulate Culver City.” - MAFIAA”
This posting comes from an Audible Magic press release, but it brings us some great points about municipal Wi-Fi. In many ways I like the idea of Government providing tax-supported internet service much like they do for the Nation’s highway systems.
One issue that comes up with free public internet access is content filtering. If the Government (taxpayers) offer free Wi-Fi internet service, should they filter illegal or objectionable content moving over that free internet service. This would include porn and illegal download of copyrighted materials such as movies and mp3 music files. From a legal point of view Government entities will probably have to filter this content just to protect themselves from lawsuits. I’m sure people will start suing Governments that sponsor internet services because the internet service is facilitating illegal or offensive activities. This could be a good thing.