Via Somebody Think Of The Children, the ISPs named in the filtering trial are:

• Primus Telecommunications
• Tech 2U (care for a trip back to 1992 anyone?)
• Webshield (already offers filtered service)
• OMNIconnect
• Netforce
• Highway 1

Besides iPrimus, have you even heard of any of these companies? Telstra, Optus and iiNet are all notably absent.

I decided I was going to have a poke around these companies’ websites…

TECH 2U has training notes for BOTH Window 95 AND Windows 98! They’re clearly a relevant company.

TECH 2U asks that “If you’ve found something cool on the web you want to see here, let us know.” The only problem is their SSL certificate expired on 13 August 2008, causing the link to break.

TECH 2U boasts links to thirteen separate filtering applications. Webshield is a not-for-profit whose whole business model is centred on “think of the children” hysteria. There’s only one outcome of this trial that could possibly be reported by either of these ISPs. Resounding success. Don’t believe me? Look at Webshield’s “Do we believe in free speech?” FAQ entry. At least they’re honest. Noticing a pattern here? Could Herr Conroy have selected this rag-tag mob of podunk ISPs in an attempt to get favourable results from a non-representative sample of pro-cleanfeed ISPs? Naaaahhhhh.

The Netforce homepage contains a large “Consulting” link at the bottom left. If you follow this link you get a 404 Page Not Found error (at least at the time of writing). This isn’t some minor link buried deep within their site somewhere. This is a big, front page, customer attracting link. And nobody noticed it’s broken.

I’m noticing another pattern amongst these ISPs. They’re about as good at their jobs as Herr Conroy is at his.