Ministers have done a U turn on plans to automatically block internet access to pornography on all computers.
A public consultation found only 35% of parents wanted an automatic bar while 15% wanted some content filtered, and an option to block other material.
But the government says internet providers should encourage parents to switch on parental controls.
There were more than 3,500 responses to the 10 week consultation – which included those from members of the public, academics, charities and communication firms as well as 757 from parents.
Respondents were asked to answer “yes”, “no” or “maybe” to three separate questions about how internet service providers (ISP) could play a role in limiting access.
An automatic block would mean users would have to actively request that pornographic content was made available by their ISP.
The report said there was “no great appetite among parents for the introduction of default filtering of the internet by their ISP – only 35% of the parents who responded favoured that approach”.
Some 13% said they favoured “a system where you are automatically asked some questions about what you want your children to be able to access”.
And 15% answered “yes” to a system that combined the previous two approaches where some harmful content, such as pornography, was automatically blocked but parents were also asked about what other content their children could access.
But the report said an automatic ban – or “opt-in” – approach could lead parents into a “false sense of security” because it could not filter “all potentially harmful content”.
It also did not “deal with harms such as bullying, personal abuse, grooming or sexual exploitation which arise from the behaviour of other internet users”.
It added: “There is also a risk from ‘over-blocking’ – preventing access to websites which provide helpful information on sexual health or sexual identity, issues which young people may want information on but find difficult to talk to their parents about.”
About 70% of the 78 voluntary and community sector organisations that responded answered “yes” to an automatic block while a strong majority of respondents from all other groups answered “no”.
While a large majority of the 77 information and communication businesses questioned were against all forms of control, they gave most support (about 18%) to the second approach, in which parents decide what they want their children to access on the internet.
The report found that, taking respondents as a whole, the majority were against all forms of control with more than 80% answering no to each of the three questions.
Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, which is opposed to default filtering, said: “This is a positive step that strikes the right balance between child safety and parental responsibility without infringing on civil liberties and freedom of speech.
“The policy recognises it is parents, not government, who are responsible for controlling what their children see online and rightly avoids any kind of state-mandated blocking of legal content.”