QuickLinks - Rating and filtering

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Issue no. 249 - 10 November 2002

• AOL to Sell Message Monitoring to Firms (Washington Post)
  America Online has begun charging companies a fee to monitor use of instant-messaging software in the workplace. A new, more secure version of AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, will enable businesses to read instant messages sent by employees, just as businesses can now monitor their workers' e-mail. The version for business will cost about $35 per person annually, sources said, although the consumer version will remain free.

• Europe - New age rating system for games (GameSpot UK)
  An age rating system has been put in place in Europe to ensure children aren't exposed to unsuitable content The ISFE announces plans for new voluntary age ratings and symbols for games across Europe. The Interactive Software Federation of Europe (IFSE) has today announced plans for a new pan-European system of age ratings and warning symbols for games in Europe. The voluntary system will include five age categories: aged three and over; seven and over; 12 and over; 16 and over, and 18 and over. The age ratings will not relate to the complexity of the games in any way, but are designed to ensure that children aren't exposed to content that might be unsuitable. In addition to the age ratings, a series of six symbols designed to warn parents about specific types of content will be introduced. The six symbols, of which only a maximum of two will appear on any one game, highlight game content that includes violence, sex, drugs, fear, discrimination, and bad language.

• Internet filtering: preventing porn and pushing productivity (Datamonitor)
  Datamonitor's recent survey found that European enterprises rate URL filtering and conditional access solutions as high priorities in networking investment. Companies are starting to realize the potential costs of Internet access, both in productivity and in exposure to lawsuits over offensive materials - indeed, pornography is the most heavily restricted content.

• US - McAfee teams with Wal-mart on parental controls (IDG)
  Antivirus software maker McAfee is teaming in an exclusive deal with discount retailer Wal-Mart to offer a stand-alone product that will help parents clamp down on their children's online adventures. The software will work with any Internet service provider and sell for about $20.

Issue no. 247 - 19 October 2002

• UK - Radio Times keeps it in the family (Guardian)
  Radio Times is launching a family viewing symbol to its listings pages. The icon, depicting two adults and two children, will appear alongside programmes considered suitable for all the family, both before and after the 9pm watershed. An upturn in the number of complaints about TV programmes over the last year demonstrates that it is increasingly difficult for busy parents to judge what their offspring should be watching. The broadcasting standards commission has warned that broadcasters were blurring the boundary of the 9pm watershed.

• Why Online Age Checks Don't Work (Wired)
  Habitual porn surfers are now used to having to type in a credit card number the first time they visit a site to prove they're over 18. The credit card gateway as age verification standard has been in place ever since the late 1990s, when the Communications Decency Act (CDA) and the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) threatened porn publishers with jail time and fines if they transmitted obscene material to minors. But as any savvy porn surfer will tell you, the age verification systems don't necessarily work

Issue no. 246 - 29 September 2002

• EFF: School Communities Give Internet Filtering Law Failing Grade (EFF)
  School administrators, along with students, teachers, parents, and school librarians, in San Francisco, New York, and Boston will speak out against federal mandates for Internet blocking or filtering software in public schools. see also Hey Filters, Leave the Kids Alone (Wired).

• Internet Filtering Software Wrongly Blocks Many Sites (EFF)
  San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Online Policy Group (OPG) have released preliminary results of research on Internet blocking or filtering in schools. The research examined the effects of N2H2's Bess and SurfControl, two of the most commonly used Internet blocking software products, on Internet searches of all topics from the state-mandated curriculums of California, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.

• UK - Parents shun Web filtering tools (silicon.com)
  Only one-third of parents use filtering tools to control their child's access to the Web because they think they are too complicated. Instead, they opt for low-tech methods such as keeping the family PC in the living room to ensure youngsters don't see any unsuitable material. Many mums and dads also believe installing such software shows a lack of trust in their children. According to research published by the BBC, the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC) and the Independent Television Commission (ITC), only 32 per cent of parents currently have a filter in place on the home PC, although many feel that they will use these tools more heavily in the future. see Striking a balance: the control of children's media consumption (ITC Press Release) and Report (PDF) .

Issue no. 245 - 15 September 2002

• Words to the wise on the Web (CNET News.com)
  Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once quipped that though he couldn't define pornography, he knew it when he saw it. Will filtering software ever have it that easy? Not anytime soon, and not without a lot of human intervention, according to language expert Geoffrey Nunberg. The Internet is too vast and diverse, and the applications too indiscriminate in their quest for the obscene and the pornographic, he says.

Issue no. 244 - 7 September 2002

• Real-Time Testing of Internet Filtering in China (Harvard Law School)
  by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The authors are studying Internet filtering in countries worldwide, including restrictions on Web access in China. To help broaden the list of pages tested and to provide the general public a means of finding out whether particular pages of interest are filtered, we have created the form, which will run a realtime query via our methods.

• UK - X-rated gaming (PC Advisor)
  The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) announced its process for classifying digital works at ECTS (the European computer tradeshow). The London-based tradeshow is the biggest yearly gathering for the games industry and the BBFC choose this venue to explain its procedure for categorising games under certain certificates.

Issue no. 243 - 31 August 2002

• AU - Cyber censor to watch out for students' bad language (Sydney Morning Herald)
  When New South Wales' students and teachers log on to their new "e-learning accounts" they will find every keyboard stroke monitored to ban bad language. A range of filters to block sexually explicit and offensive material is being developed by the NSW Department of Education and Training and Unisys, the prime contractor of the $33 million roll-out of new email accounts, Internet access, chat rooms, Web sites and bulletin boards.

• Die USK-Prüfdatenbank integriert! (Zavatar.de)
  Mit der Integration der USK-Prüfdatenbank bieten wir Ihnen die offiziellen Prüfergebnisse der Unterhaltungssoftware SelbstKontrolle - aktuell und zuverlässig. Sie können in dieser Datenbank die USK-Einstufungen zu über 7.300 Produktionen der letzten acht Jahre recherchieren.

• UK - New film rating for children unveiled (Reuters)
  The Board of Film Classification has changed the way it rates some films, meaning children of any age can see the violent hit "Spider-Man" and hundreds of other previously off-limit titles. The Board said its new "12A" certificate was created after a majority of parents said they wanted the power to decide themselves whether their children see films rated for 12-year-old viewers or older. The new category will require children under 12 to be accompanied by an adult, while children over 12 will be able to see the film unaccompanied, as before.

Issue no. 242 - 30 July 2002

• US - ACLU Sues to reveal blocking Program Lists (ACLU Press Release)
  The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal court in Massachusetts to rule that a computer researcher has First Amendment and "fair use" rights to examine the full list of sites contained in an Internet blocking program and to share his research tools and results with others. The ACLU seek a "declaratory judgment" from the court on behalf of researcher Benjamin Edelman, who wishes to examine a controversial blocking program manufactured by N2H2 Inc., of Seattle. Edelman v. N2H2, Inc - Case Summary & Documents

Issue no. 241 - 24 July 2002

• Can the Internet survive filtering? (CNET news.com)
  The Net is increasingly getting broken into cantons. The digital chain connecting one's laptop to a Web site thousands of miles away can be traversed by a single click--so long as no link within the chain refuses to carry the signal. Such refusals, though still rare, are on the rise. Why Countries Make Sites Unseen

• Saudi Arabia - Documentation of Internet Filtering (Harvard Law School)
  by Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The authors connected to the Internet through proxy servers in Saudi Arabia and attempted to access approximately 60,000 Web pages as a means of empirically determining the scope and pervasiveness of Internet filtering there. Saudi-installed filtering systems prevented access to certain requested Web pages; the authors tracked 2,038 blocked pages. Such pages contained information about religion, health, education, reference, humor, and entertainment. The authors conclude (1) that the Saudi government maintains an active interest in filtering non-sexually explicit Web content for users within the Kingdom; (2) that substantial amounts of non-sexually explicit Web content is in fact effectively inaccessible to most Saudi Arabians; and (3) that much of this content consists of sites that are popular elsewhere in the world. see also Documentation of Internet Filtering Worldwide.

• Yahoo filters coffee by e-mail (CNET News.com)
  What does Yahoo Mail have against mocha? That's what users of the company's free e-mail service may be wondering if they try to send a message using the word "mocha" and discover that while in transit, "mocha" mysteriously changes to "espresso." To protect users from malicious code, Yahoo uses an automated filter to swap out a handful of words such as "mocha" that pertain to Web code known as JavaScript. The reason is that e-mail sent in a form known as "Web enhanced" can contain JavaScript instructions that can run programs on the recipient's PC. JavaScript is a Web language that can issue commands such as telling the browser to open up other windows or to prompt a service to change a password, for example.

Issue no. 240 - 14 July 2002

• DE - Software filtert Schimpfwörter aus Chats (ZDNet)
  Die Debatte um den Jugendschutz im Web und passende Werkzeuge hierzu dauert an: Nun hat die Frankfurter Multimedia-Agentur "Neue Digitale" eine Software vorgestellt, die unschöne Wörter aus Chats herausfiltert. "Damit könnten Wirtschaft und öffentliche Hand sicherstellen, dass ihre Web-Präsenz sauber bleibt", ließ das Unternehmen verlauten.

• DE - Suchmaschinen sollen gemeinsame Filterliste erstellen (Heise)
  Das Mainzer Aufsichtsgremium jugendschutz.net, eine gemeinsame Einrichtung der Jugendministerien der Länder, hat an Betreiber von Suchdiensten eine "Verpflichtungserklärung" zum Aufbau und Austausch einer schwarzen Liste für "unzulässige und jugendgefährdende Adressen" und Keywords verschickt. Mit dem Dokument, das heise online vorliegt, sollen sich die Anbieter dazu bereit erklären, die illegalen und die jugendgefährdenden "Fundstellen" in Suchindexen und Webkatalogen zu sperren.

• Filter firm’s Web site bares all (MSNBC)
  Graphically illustrating its contention that its software is second to none, the Internet-filtering firm Websense is linking its corporate home page to a daily roster of sites featuring hard-core sex, hacking information and racist rants that it says weren’t blocked by two of its rivals.

Issue no. 239 - 30 June 2002

• US - Net giants label their content to protect kids (IDG)
  Internet powerhouses America Online, Microsoft's Microsoft Network (MSN) and Yahoo have labelled a majority of the content on their sites as part of a new Internet filtering initiative meant to protect children online. The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) said that the major portals have labelled approximately 93 percent of their sites' content. see also a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44061-2002Jun25.html">Critics Take Aim at New Filtering Service (Washington Post). The nonprofit, industry-backed Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) released ICRAfilter, a free software product that works in conjunction with electronic "meta-tags" installed by Web site operators.

Issue no. 238 - 22 June 2002

• UK - Schools filter out porn websites (BBC)
  Education authorities across south west Wales have tightened procedures to try and prevent school children accessing internet porn sites. Swansea's education department launched an inquiry after children as young as 10 logged on to a hard core porn site during a computer studies course.

• US - Justice Dept. Seeks High Court Review in 'Net Filtering Case (washingtonpost.com)
  In a case that tests the limits of constitutional free speech rights on the Internet, the Bush administration today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a law that denies federal funds for public libraries that allow patrons to look at pornographic Web sites.

• US - Peacefire gets under skin of anti-porn filterers (AP)
  Internet activist Bennett Haselton has made a name for himself by helping minors disable filtering programs designed to block Web sites that their parents deem offensive or pornographic.

Issue no. 236 - 8 June 2002

• DE - Regulierung von Internetinhalten - Betrachtung aus technischer Sicht (eco)
  Zusammenfassend lässt sich feststellen, dass zwar Technologien existieren, die bei der Regulierung einer Nutzung von Internet-Inhalten hilfreich wären, die jedoch kaum in ausreichendem Maß geeignet wären, den deutschen Internet-Benutzer am Zugriff auf unerwünschte Inhalte zu hindern bzw. dafür zu sorgen, dass der Benutzer einem bestimmten Maß an wünschenswerten Inhalten ausgesetzt wird. Darüber hinaus ist eine derartige Regulierung von Inhalten für die betroffenen Telekommunikationsdiensteanbieter nicht zumutbar, da sie diesen unverhältnismäßige Kosten aufbürdet. (PDF, 154 KB)

• US - Court: Library Filter Law Illegal (Wired)
  A controversial library filtering law is unconstitutional, a special three-judge court ruled. The Philadelphia court unanimously said that a federal law designed to encourage the use of filtering software violated library patrons' rights to access legitimate, non-pornographic websites. At the heart of the decision was one key point: Buggy software. In the most extensive courtroom analysis to date, the panel concluded that not only was current technology far too problematic, but its tendency to both overblock and underblock sites won't go away: "Filtering products' shortcomings will not be solved through a technical solution in the foreseeable future." see Opinion and Order. Libraries Breathe Easy After Court Ruling On Internet Filters and Judith Krug of the American Library Association (Washington Post) and ITAA Hails Internet Filter Ruling (FCW).

Issue no. 234 - 11 May 2002

• Australia - Web filtering orders for ISPs (Australian IT)
  Internet service providers must now provide subscribers with filtering software at cost, the Australian Broadcasting Authority said. for access to content hosted outside Australia. The ABA has registered replacement codes of practice for the internet industry, setting out the responsibilities of ISPs and internet content hosts in relation to offensive and illegal internet content.

• UK - BBC debuts family friendly search engine (vnunet)
  The BBC has launched a new 'family friendly' internet search engine which it claims can filter out porn and will be slanted to UK sites.

Issue no. 232 - 28 April 2002

• EU - Council Resolution on video games (CELEX)
  Council Resolution of 1 March 2002 on the protection of consumers, in particular young people, through the labelling of certain video games and computer games according to age group.

Issue no. 231 - 14 April 2002

• Singapore - ISP To Block Sites On Broadband Service (Newsbytes)
  SingNet, the ISP arm of Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), will offer a filtered broadband Internet service as an option to its subscribers and for a fee preventing users from accessing over a half million Web sites using a list updated by a U.S.-based Web filtering company. The blocking service is server-based - beyond the control of users - and does not require the download of filtering software.

• Un filtre contre l'Internet intolérant (Yahoo FR)
  L'Anti-Defamation League (ADL), une association américaine de lutte contre l'antisémitisme et l'intolérance, se propose désormais de fournir une parade avec la nouvelle version de HateFilter, son filtre de sites Web.

Issue no. 230 - 7 April 2002

• Australia - Net Filters 'No Substitute For Good Parenting' - Study (Newsbytes)
  CSIRO, Australia's national scientific research agency, conducted the investigation into Web filtering software at the behest of the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), the country's broadcasting and Internet content regulator. Under Australia's Internet content regulations, ISPs must have filtering software available for their clients and block local Web sites when so directed by the ABA. The study was certainly extensive, testing filtering software against almost 900 Web sites in 28 content categories. Effectiveness of Internet Filtering Software Products (ABA) [Ed: very clearly written with explanations of the technical aspects of filtering which are comprehensible for the non-technical reader. Highly recommended]

• Schweiz - Kollateralschäden bei freiwilligen Internetsperrungen (Heise)
  Kunden der Schweizer Internetprovider IP-Plus/Swisscom und Sunrise erhalten eine Fehlermeldung, wenn sie versuchen, die URL www.butlerweb.com aufzurufen. Grund für die Blockierung des Zugangs für die Kunden der beiden Internetprovider ist die "Aktion Kinder des Holocaust" (AKDH), die vor einem Jahr erreicht hatte, dass mehrere Schweizer Internetprovider wegen der ungeklärten Rechtslage freiwillig mittels IP-Sperrung die Website front14.org unzugänglich machten. Inzwischen ist allerdings www.front14.org offline.

• USA - Judges weigh library filtering law (Reuters)
  A trial to determine how far the government can go to protect children from pornography ended with judges openly concerned about whether the latest online smut law from Congress infringes on free-speech rights. see American Library Association Complaint and Children's Internet Protection Act [PDF]. see also Judges Blast Library Filtering (Wired), Porn Trial Expert Says Blocking Software Limited (Reuters) and Govt. Witnesses Wrap Up First Week Of Filtering Trial (Newsbytes).

Issue no. 229 - 23 March 2002

• Australia - Local ISPs confront content regulation codes (ZDNet Australia)
  The Internet Industry Association's (IIA) is asking its members to commit to a revised version of the industry's online content regulation code that will remove their discretion to set prices for content filtering software.

• France - Comparaison des logiciels de contrôle parental (Ministère délégué à la famille)
  En partenariat avec l'INC (Institut National de la Consommation), douze logiciels de contrôle parental ont été testé. Les résultats de cette étude fournissent aux parents choisissant cette solution technique, une information la plus objective possible sur l'efficacité et la commodité d'emploi de ces logiciels.

• France - Logiciel de contrôle parental gratuit sur le site du ministère de la Famille (AFP)
  A la fin du mois de mars, les parents pourront télécharger un logiciel de contrôle parental gratuit sur le site du ministère délégué à la Famille. La ministre, Ségolène Royal, devait annoncer cette mesure, en ouvrant Les rencontres du Net: Internet, jeunes et familles, organisées en préambule de la 5ème Fête de l'internet (22 au 24 mars). Entretien avec Ségolène Royal ministre déléguée à la famille, à l'enfance et aux personnes handicapées (Le Monde).

• ICRA - Un filtre web créé en collaboration avec des sites "volontaires" (Reuters)
  Un organisme de protection des enfants sur internet a présenté un filtre informatique empêchant l'accès aux sites à caractère insidieux ou incitant entre autres à l'usage des drogues et à la haine raciale. L'Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) mis en place le premier système de classification à grande échelle basé sur une déclaration volontaire des sites concernés. voir aussi Icra Filter : le chaperon du Net (Vnunet.fr)

• UK - Internet industry leaders gather for launch of ICRAfilter (ICRA Press Release)
  ICRAfilter marks a significant development in international efforts towards empowering parents to protect their children on the Internet without infringing on content providers' freedom of expression. ICRAfilter is the second phase of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) global labelling system. The initial phase was the creation of the first truly international syntax to describe content on the Internet. Content providers can voluntarily and objectively label their own sites by completing a questionnaire which generates a descriptive html tag or label following the PICS standard. ICRA's new filtering tool 'reads' the labels ensuring that parents world-wide will now be able to filter content according to their values and what they feel is appropriate for their own children. see also New web controls to protect children (BBC) and New internet filtering software released (Guardian).

• USA - Anti-hate group updates Web filter (CNET News.com)
  The Anti-Defamation League has updated its Web filter with free software in an effort to combat sites that the group claims promote hate. With the ADL HateFilter 2.0, the league has dropped software provider Cyber Patrol and turned to technology from the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), an international nonprofit group composed of industry leaders such as Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, IBM and VeriSign. The ICRA is not charging the ADL for the new technology; previously, the filter cost $29.95 a year. Like the previous version, the new software lets people block access to a list of sites that the group says espouse hatred, including those run by neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Holocaust deniers. The new filter lets people add to the list pornographic, violent and other online content that parents or other organizations consider unsuitable for children.

• USA - Filters Block 'Sinful Six' (Wired)
  Wasting time on the Internet -- perhaps the favorite pastime of corporate America -- is increasingly coming under assault. In the interests of creating a more efficient workplace (or simply preventing employees from spending the day looking online for better jobs), Internet filtering firms say that a growing number of companies have begun restricting access to non-work-related websites.

• USA - Visa strikes deal to tackle e-porn (Marketing Weekly - registration required)
  Visa has turned to an online brand protection company to prevent the use of its services by illegal pornography websites. The company is working with an unnamed US specialist with links to UK-based IBNet. IBNet uses a mixture of software and manpower to scan the Internet for key words and phrases. When it spots offending material, it reports it to the client. Visa is believed to be particularly uncomfortable about the use of its service by some of the so-called "Lolita" websites, which feature under-age sex.

Issue no. 228 - 17 March 2002

• Thailand - Authorities urged to blacklist pornographic sites in system (Bangkok Post)
  Authorities have been urged to blacklist pornographic sites on the Internet in order to protect children. An NGO activist directed his proposal to the Communications Authority of Thailand which, he said, should be responsible for any information it allows to flow into the country's Internet-links system. He raised the issue at a seminar on "Children: Sex victims of electronic media'', organised by the National Youth Bureau.

• The Pre-Slipped Slope - censorware vs the Wayback Machine web archive (Seth Finkelstein)
  This report examines how various censorware programs blacklist an extensive (100 Terabytes) web-site archive called the "Wayback Machine" . The control requirements of censorware lead to considering this archive site as a "Loophole" or "proxy avoidance systems".

Issue no. 227 - 10 March 2002

• BESS vs Image Search Engines (Seth Finkelstein)
  An anticensorware investigation. This report investigates how N2H2's censorware treats several image search engines. N2H2/BESS turns out to blacklist popular general image searching sites as "Pornography". The cached images held by such sites are probably the cause. This is discussed as a deep dilemma of censorware, where general search facilities may be considered as tainted if they contain any cached forbidden material.

• Report cites possible religious bias in school web filters (eSchool News)
  A report Filtering Software: The Religious Connection by the Responsible Netizen Project of the University of Oregon’s Center for Advanced Technology in Education raises questions about the link between conservative religious organizations and several internet filtering solutions, including three used widely in public schools.

Issue no. 224 - 16 February 2002

• UK - Tumbleweed rolls in to remove NTL's porn (netimperative)
  US content security specialist Tumbleweed Communications has been recruited by cable firm NTL to filter pornography, violence and other inappropriate material from the company's web services for schools, in a deal believed to be worth around £500,000.

Issue no. 222 - 2 February 2002

• USA - Peacefire Accuses CyberPatrol Of 'Overblocking' (Newsbytes)
  Anti-Internet-filtering Web site Peacefire.org has released a scathing review of the CyberPatrol Internet-blocking software.

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