There's quite a few joking replies on this thread, most of which I got a few chuckles out of. But the problem just keeps popping back up. In Australia we had

There's quite a few joking replies on this thread, most of which I got a few chuckles out of. But the problem just keeps popping back up. In Australia we had the very-close run thing of the ISP based internet filter. This got as far as live trials. Most people didn't mind an opt-in filter, but this one had no unfiltered option. The government planned to hand off censorship to some type of unelected board, and the entire thing was cloaked in secrecy, so you weren't allowed to know the contents of the 'filtered' content (because they say that just makes people go and look at them, a circular argument if ever there was one). Of course they promised it would only be kiddie porn, terrorists and all that type of thing. Then the trial list got leaked onto Wikileaks and of course there were all sorts of ordinary sites caught up in the mesh (some had been hacked by porn sites in the past, but had been cleaned up again). There were others that didn't fall under the government criteria, and it was just obvious they didn't have any intention to stick to their own criteria. Luckily a close election was forecast so the government dumped the thing as it needed every vote it could. But, as you say, the entrenched businesses and terrified of being taken out of business and are doing everything they can to get controls placed onto the internet. Australian retailers are getting killed by internet imports and internet price-checking (ie, going into a retail store, picking the item, checking on a phone for a better price, and ordering online). The big-name retailers have already moaned to the government to do something, which of course they got laughed at by the general public so dropped it. But the point is this ; if the tools were there, the government might have proposed a 'report for being un-Australian site' type button. It's equally possible to imagine a 'report for exporting jobs overseas' button - or whatever other crazy scenarios you can think of. I can't see it stopping until a constitutional amendment or similar high-level decision is made declaring government fiddling off limits. There's US constitutional protection for owning a gun, or freedom of speech, but not one guaranteeing a free internet. Eventually free internet is likely to become as important as both put together.