From Now On
The Educational Technology Journal


 Vol 8|No 8|May|1999

Envelope-to: mckenzie@fno.org
From: Sites <sites@surfwatch.com>
To: "'mckenzie@fno.org'" <mckenzie@fno.org>
Subject: RE: (no subject)
Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 18:10:01 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status:

Hello Jamie-
Thank you very much for your e-mail. We have actually already corrected this error. The site is now accessible when using SurfWatch software.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

(name removed)
SurfWatch Content
SurfWatch Software, a Division of Spyglass, Inc.
http://www.surfwatch.com
http://www.spyglass.com
phone: 408.395.8750
fax: 408.395.8120
***For the most complete filtering, download our latest version of SurfWatch
for Windows 95 and Windows 98 users at http://www1.surfwatch.com/freeupgrade
today!***

-----Original Message-----
From: Loewenstein, Mark
Sent: Monday, May 03, 1999 5:29 PM
To: Sites
Subject: Fw: (no subject)



----- Original Message -----
From: WLMA Communications <wlma@wlma.org>
To: <webmaster@surfwatch.com>
Sent: Friday, April 30, 1999 7:28 PM
Subject: (no subject)


> Are you aware that this message was posted to over 25,000
> librarians nation-wide?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:07:50 -0700
From: Jamie McKenzie <mckenzie@fno.org
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Defamation of Character

Dear Colleagues . . .

Last week I became aware that articles on my Web site were
being blocked by
an Internet filtering software company named SurfWatch.
www.surfwatch.com

A technology director e-mailed me complaining that she could
not get to an
article I had written about adult learning.
http://www.fno.org/eschool/adult.html

When you visit http://www.surfwatch.com and test that
address, it says that
it is blocked for "sexually explicit material" yet the
article contains
none.

Is this approach to blocking content arbitrary, capricious
and
irresponsible? It evidently relies upon clues like the file
name
"adult.html" to filter pages without actually examining
their content. If
they were simply blocking the site, it would be one kind of
damage, but
they go a step further by labeling the content erroneously
as "sexually
explicit." This is defamation of character and false.

I went to their Web site on April 23 and filled out a form
to have them
reconsider the label. No response and no change as of
today.

What we have here is an industry which sometimes uses crude
measures to
deliver "information security" and applies a standard that a
page or a site
is "guilty until proven innocent."

It is quite possible that hundreds of people in any given
week are
erroneously told that I am providing "sexually explicit"
material on my Web
site. As a speaker, this kind of electronic smear campaign
could be quite
damaging.

I would ask members of LM_NET to send me e-mail if they have
been blocked
from the From Now On Web site by any filtering program. I
am seriously
thinking about taking legal action to stop this kind of
irresponsible site
filtering, and your messages could provide critically
important evidence.

Many thanks,
Jamie

Jamie McKenzie
Editor - "From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal"

http://fno.org

935 Lincoln Pl


935 Lincoln Pl
"The question is the answer." "Hits are not Truth."


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