Australians Debate: 1

The debate in Australia has been going on for years on how free the internet needs to be and online casinos often are thrown in the middle of the debate. The Australian Communication and Media Authority recently released a report that observed the practices of home internet connections. The report was called ‘Australia in the Digital Economy: Trust and Confidence’. The report showed that many of the citizens of Australia with an at home internet connection have little to no security settings that protect their computers from being hacked into. Although a lot of websites, like a bank website or an online casino, are often seen as very secure websites, that is not always the case. At the moment the Australian government is urging their citizens to become more literate in the technology that is emerging in their country and all over the world.

Over all the report stated that the government should educate the people on how to properly and safely navigate on the internet. This may not be a good thing in everyone’s eyes, however. A reporter fro Reporters Without Borders put the whole country of Australia on the list of countries to watch as an enemy of internet freedom. This issue of internet freedom affects way more than just the online casino industry it would affect blogs and social networking sites as well. The reporter warned that a lot of the restrictions that could potentially have a negative affect on the people of Australia because there is a fine line between regulating and abusing power and controlling information on the internet. The spokesman for Greens communications Senator Scott Ludlam said, “This report demolished the Communications Minister's contention that Australia is just following other comparable democracies."