Internet has been built as a decentralized network, in which no party can unilaterally decide to block the information flowing through the communications architecture. However, this founding principle of Net neutrality is now put into question by several legislative projects that seek to impose administrative filtering and blocking of websites. Whether it is online gambling, violent or pedopornographic content, but also defamation or copyright infringement, a growing number of democratic government are considering this mode of regulation of the Internet both ineffective and extremely dangerous for civil liberties.

Net filtering is ineffective because the means of circumventing such measures already exists, and they will only disseminate as filtering and blocking practices develop. It is also dangerous for civil liberties given the risk of over-blocking perfectly legitimate websites and would therefore severely harm the freedom of expression and communication. Giving to an extrajudicial entity the power to block access to websites would open the doors to Internet censorship.

In the face of the important flaws consubstantial to Net filtering, public authorities must consider alternative solutions in order to enforce the law on the Internet. Depending on the situation, various courses of action should be examined: increasing the resources of police services dedicated to cybercrime, blocking illegal financial flows over the network or perfecting the control softwares voluntarily installed by end-users onto their computers, etc.