10. Government Intervention

Most countries have very few restrictions and their citizens are allowed the freedom to access anything they want so long as it is not illegal e.g. child pornography.

However, some countries are concerned about preserving their traditional way of life and they want to minimise the impact that the Internet might have on their citizens.

Other countries want to maintain control and censorship over what their people can see and read about.

They have attempted to restrict access to the Internet by different methods:

• Only allowing access at work, not at home
• Ensuring National firewalls block 'undesirable' websites
• Getting the large search engines e.g. Google, to change the results they provide or to hand over details of what sites users are accessing.
• Using web cams in Internet cafes to monitor what people are accessing
• Using 'cyber cops', a special police unit to prevent the spread of banned materials via the net
• Heavy punishments if found using 'unapproved' services.

However, these Governments are finding it hard to completely control free access to the Internet because:

• Restricting the people who have access to the Internet at work does not always prevent them looking at restricted information (although this is often monitored and passed onto the Government)
• There are different ways of connecting to the Internet which enable national firewalls to be avoided e.g. satellite links
• Information may be sent by people outside the country via e-mail
• Information may be hidden or coded inside innocent looking images or messages.