The French government plans to force browsers to block blacklisted websites at the software level

CTOnews.com The French government is pushing legislation called the SREN bill, which would require browser providers to block websites on government-provided blacklists at the software level.

PexelsCTOnews.com notes that this move has raised concerns and objections from Mozilla, the parent company of Firefox, that it will have a chilling effect on browsers and the free Internet.

Article 6 of the SREN Act describes the French government's intention to force browsers to have built-in filters as a mandatory content blocker.

Mozilla noted in a blog post that this is fundamentally different from tools such as Microsoft Smart Screen, which automatically blocks websites reported as phishing and malware attacks, but users can easily bypass them. The mechanism sought by the French government would completely block any website or platform they believe should be blocked.

Britain is currently pushing a similar bill in its parliament, the so-called "Online Security Bill," which would force companies such as Microsoft to include government-mandated backdoors in apps with end-to-end encryption, killing apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram that rely on strong encryption methods to protect user data privacy, and companies such as WhatsApp and Signal have even threatened to withdraw from the UK market altogether.