Internet Villain 2009 announced

The winners of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) Awards 2009 were announced on Thursday night.

Among the awards was the Internet Villain prize, which was given to the Australian government.

The Australian government and Stephen Conroy in particular were criticised "for continuing to promote network-level blocking despite significant national and international opposition", ISPA said.

Conroy, the minister for broadband, has been responsible for a censorship policy which was initially implemented to target child-abuse websites but has now also blocked many other sites deemed to be in poor taste.

ISPA Awards 2009: Winners

The Internet Hero for 2009 was the Featured Artist Coalition for its work in trying to promote increased cooperation between musicians and ISPs in the fight against copyright theft.

Other awards included Best Consumer Fixed-line Broadband, won by O2, which also scooped the Best Consumer Customer Service prize.

Best Consumer Mobile Broadband ISP was Vodafone and Exa Networks won the Best Dial-Up gong.