A large set of new laws governing content in Australia have been passed and go into affect on 20 Jan 2008. Here’s the skinny on what their government will do:

• “Content service providers” are required to check the consumers age and apply restrictions according to an examination done by the Australian Office of Film and Literature (OFLC)
• The examination sets a rating of the content based on their own rating system
• They can enforce it by banning content or sites, sent take down notices to hosts, or even blacklist whole sites or companies with themandatory Australian Internet sensor.

Australian government, I’m happy to consider complying with your new Australian laws even though I live and am hosted in the U.S.A. I will need the following from you:

1. An overview or summary of these new laws.
2. Clear detailed documentation, in electronic form, on the laws, rating process, ratings, and any other related items needed to comply with these new laws.
3. A government accepted method to check the age of Australian consumers. All electronics or servers involved will need clear documentation along with a one year proven track record of 99.999% uptime before integrating it with my systems.
4. An Australian government liaison to work with my project manager and my accountant.

After this information is provided, I’m happy to consider it with the intention of finding an acceptable solution between us both. At this point, any delays, blacklisting, censorship, or take-down will be due to your own delays or neglect. I am ready and waiting to jump into action.

All expenses will be summarily tracked by my accountant and invoiced to you; each due within 30 days. Please have your liaison provide a clear method for reimbursement back to us. Starting in 2008, these are the hourly rates (outside of hard expenses) for taking on this project:

• Project manager, $175/hr
• Accountant, $250/hr
• Owner supervision, $275/hr
• Web developer, $75/hr
• SQL developer, $125/hr
• C++ developer, $125/hr

Thank you, and I look forward to this new cross-Pacific partnership. You may contact me using the information listed in the WHOIS database for this domain.

A recent article at CNet speaks to kids using e-mail less and less. Myself, I noticed this trend several years back as instant messaging (IM) first grabbed the attention of the younger generations alongside growing presence for social networking sites. IM still has its place, but texting is far more omnipresent and doesn’t require people to be tethered to their computers.

Texting is definitely part of my everyday life. IM doesn’t exist. And e-mail continues to be a tool for delayed, time-shifted, or detailed communication. And so the world turns…