Post one of Australia's banned links, get fined AU$11,000/day

Alys sez, "The Australian communications regulator is going to fine those who link to sites that are listed on their blacklist. It threatened an online forum with an $11,000/day fine over a link posted to an anti-abortion website that was on the blacklist.

To add insult to injury, several pages of Wikileaks have also ended up on their blacklist, due to their posting of the Danish list of banned websites."

Electronic Frontiers Australia said the leak of the Danish blacklist and ACMA's subsequent attempts to block people from viewing it showed how easy it would be for ACMA's own blacklist – which is secret – to be leaked onto the web once it is handed to ISPs for filtering.

"We note that, not only do these incidents show that the ACMA censors are more than willing to interpret their broad guidelines to include a discussion forum and document repository, it is demonstrably inevitable that the Government's own list is bound to be exposed itself at some point in the future," EFA said.

"The Government would serve the country well by sparing themselves, and us, this embarrassment."

Last week, Reporters Without Borders, in its regular report on enemies of internet freedom, placed Australia on its "watch list" of countries imposing anti-democratic internet restrictions that could open the way for abuses of power and control of information.

Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day