Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says the list isn’t official but bloggers and other ‘observers’ are having a field day with it, just the same.

The list, containing 2395 Web sites supposedly to be to banned under the new Australian national Clean Feed initiative, was apparently leaked earlier this week.

Conroy claims the ‘leaked’ list is obviously a fake because the real list has less than 1,100 sites on it. Which contradicts a statement his ministry made last November, that thre were already more than 1,300 sites on the list at that time.

Nevertheless… The ‘leaked list is interesting. Along with online gambling sites and adult ‘entertainment’ sites, the list includes sites which some Netizens would consider innocuous and others would deem essential to their daily online lives — such as Wikipedia and YouTube.

However, the ‘leaked’ list does contain some sites that are already illegal under Australian law and the Australian Communications and Media Authority  (ACMA) has officially warned that anyone who republishes the list or  visits child porn sites on it may be liable to ten years in prison.

ACMA has also warned that just linking to sites on the list could result in fines of up to (A)$11,000 a day.