[Israel]: Why were ISPs Fined for not Promoting Free Parental Control Services?

 
The Israeli Minster of Communications, Gilad Erdan [pictured], announced [here, Hebrew] that two local ISPs - Cellcom (also an MNO) and Bezeq International were fined for not informing their customers properly on the free parental control service they must offer all subscribers.

ISPs must offer free filtering against harmful content, and among other things, send printed (!) flyers and announce it in their web sites. Cellcom was fined $83,000 and Bezeq International (39% of the ISP market) $47,000. Maximum fine is $161,000. See the detailed message (Hebrew) here and here.

While the regulation requires ISPs to offer a free and "effective" filtering service, they all offer a value-added service parental control. I am sure you'll be surprised to see that Bezeq's iKeeper (product of PureSight) service ($3/month) is promoted on the web site! Bezeq even has a video (see below) explaining it. If just 1,300 customers chose to use it instead of the free service, the fine was covered in one year.