TalkTalk has switched on its porn-filtering software for all new customers, so they will have to choose to switch on access to adult websites.
The chatty ISP is the first of Britain's internet providers to make access to porn an opt-in option, with customers prompted to reconfirm their decisions every year.
So unless customers ask for it to be turned off, TalkTalk's HomeSafe filter will automatically block websites featuring porn, violence, gambling and drugs.
Safe house
It means that TalkTalk has pre-empted the government's plans to make all ISPs use filters as default, requiring customers to choose to allow access to porn over their connection.
Some commentators call this censorship, of a sort. Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group criticised the plans currently unver government's consultation, saying, "We welcome a consultation but default filternets are awful.
"They block a wide range of innocent material; and nobody should be advocating broader and simpler censorship."
Dido Harding, chief executive of TalkTalk, disagrees, and thinks that TalkTalk's competitors are being "dreadfully slow to wake up to the fact that society as a whole cares strongly about this".
From Metro
