The largest ISPs in the UK (BT, Sky, Talk­Talk and Vir­gin) are work­ing on plans to offer UK con­sumers “a choice at the point of pur­chase over whether they want adult con­tent on their home inter­net, lap­tops or smart phones.”

So instead of an eas­ily bypassed soft­ware fil­ter or site block­ing solu­tion that sits on one’s desk­top, the new sys­tem will pro­vide for auto­matic safe Inter­net access at the ISP level, upon pur­chase of the ser­vice (noth­ing else is required).

This is all we’re ask­ing for in the US: parental and con­sumer choice for a gen­eral Com­mu­nity Inter­net option that is in com­pli­ance with already exist­ing laws meant to pro­tect chil­dren from ille­gal, inap­pro­pri­ate mate­ri­als. It would be won­der­ful if US ISPs would also lead the way and sim­ply pro­vide this option–but after sev­eral years of lob­by­ing they have refused to do so. It’s time for our Con­gress to step in and require ISPs to pro­vide this option for those par­ents and fam­i­lies who want it.

Just as US auto­mo­bile com­pa­nies uli­mately needed to be required to pro­vide seat belts to pro­tect peo­ple, it’s now well past time to require that the the US Inter­net indus­try pro­vide an Inter­net option that allows par­ents to pro­tect their chil­dren from hard-core, ille­gal, inap­pro­pri­ate mate­ri­als if they so choose.

Please help make this hap­pen! Sign the Safe Inter­net Peti­tion today and let your gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives that you care about our kids; and if you’ve sent a peti­tion pre­vi­ously, please keep send­ing them until we’re heard and action is taken!