 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
E-Rate and Filtering: a Review of the Children's Internet Protection Act.
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
Ms. Susan Getgood
Summary Points: Filters in Schools Filtering software puts the choice of how and when children should use the Web where it should be.in the hands of parents and educators. Filtering software is the most effective way to safeguard kids from inappropriate Web content while safeguarding our First Amendment rights of free speech. Almost all of America's K-12 schools have Internet access, many directly in the classroom and of these, about 60 percent of schools already use some sort of filtering device. Schools implement filtering software for many reasons. Clearly, the most compelling reason is the desire to protect children at school from everything from sexually explicit content to how to build a bomb and how to buy a gun. Increasingly, we are finding that schools are also driven by the issues of legal liability and network bandwidth. How Web Filtering works Despite the widespread use of Internet filtering technology and its longevity in the marketplace, a great deal of misunderstanding exists about how it actually works. The most commonly used filters in schools, like SurfControl's Cyber Patrol and N2H2's Bess, are category list-based products that filter by IP address or domain name. In the case of Cyber Patrol, human reviewers, who are parents, teachers and trained professionals, build the lists based on published criteria. We use artificial intelligence in the research process, but ALL sites added to our CyberNOT list of inappropriate content have been reviewed by a person. This is an important point because it means there is no confusion over chicken breasts and human ones. Filtering software is very effective. Independent reviews consistently show SurfControl's Cyber Patrol to be 80 to 90 percent effective in filtering out inappropriate content. That's much more than a passing grade. SurfControl's Cyber Patrol Satisfies CHIPA SurfControl's Cyber Patrol software effectively protects children from adult material online and fully satisfies the Children's Internet Protection Act requiring schools and libraries that receive federal aid for Internet service to use such filtering technology. The ACLU and the ALA have an interesting constitutional case regarding mandated filtering in public libraries. We had hoped they'd stick to the legal arguments, and not turn to the erroneous argument that filters don't work. Filters do work, and they work well. But they have not stuck to the legal case and the result has been some confusion. Some schools mistakenly believe the ACLU and ALA lawsuits apply to them. They don't. Many schools are waiting for the FCC ruling regarding certification on April 20. For the 60% of schools in this country that have already implemented filtering software, this is a crucial date. We believe that a simple self-certification is the best solution. We think that a message needs to be sent to schools to let them know the lawsuit is not about schools. This hearing and the FCC ruling may help clear up some of the confusion. Filtering software products like Cyber Patrol are technical solutions to help implement school policy and choice. SurfControl makes the software; our users make their own choices about how they will use it in their home, school or business. Our job is to meet the needs of our users and we will continue to do so as those needs, and the Internet itself, change and evolve. House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Fred Upton, Michigan, Chairman
Hearing on "E-Rate and Filtering: a Review of the Children's Internet Protection Act," Wednesday, April 4, 2001 Testimony of Susan J. Getgood Vice President, Education Market SurfControl, Inc. Full Text of Testimony Chairman Upton, and distinguished members of the subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about Internet filtering technology, the reason so many schools use it and how it works. My name is Susan Getgood and I am Vice President for the Education Market at SurfControl. SurfControl is the owner of Cyber Patrol, the most widely used Internet filtering technology in homes and schools. I have been in the filtering industry for nearly six years, which makes me something of an elder stateswoman in this arena. Cyber Patrol was a member of the plaintiffs coalition that successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act in 1996, ACLU v Janet Reno. One of the chief arguments in that case was that filtering technology was much more effective than the law in protecting children from inappropriate content online. It still is. The difference between now and then is that the technology is vastly better. And, there are vastly more children online that deserve protection. The Growth of the Net Savvy Child More children are surfing the Net at home and school than ever before. More than 30 million children in the United States have access to the Internet, according to the Pew Project on the Internet & American Life. Once online, these children find a wealth of valuable, educational and entertaining content. But, as you know, not all online content is meant for kids. The respected National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that 25 percent of children are exposed to unwanted and inappropriate content online. Educators are well aware of the dangers. Almost all of America's K-12 schools have Internet access, many directly in the classroom and of these, about 60 percent of schools already use some sort of filtering device, according to Quality Education Data. In deciding to use filtering technology to safeguard kids, educators have parents squarely behind them. Parents and Educators Speak Out A 2000 Digital Media Forum survey found that 92 percent of Americans thought pornography should be blocked on school computers. A Middle and High School Computer Lab Director at Silver Creek Central School District in New York was recently quoted in the press talking about the schools' wake-up call, and why it decided to buy and install filtering software. The educator said: "I checked the history of each computer daily and was appalled at the Web sites our students were able to access. Students were visiting sexually explicit sites, gambling, applying for credit cards, buying products with their parents' credit cards, sending for free stuff and talking to strangers via chat rooms." Ray Tode, School Technology Office for Andover, Massachusetts schools, uses SurfControl's Cyber Patrol: "The Internet is an important tool for the classroom. But with the Internet comes inappropriate sites. So we want to filter out those inappropriate sites to protect our students."
About Filtering Software Filtering software puts the choice of how and when children should use the Web where it should be .in the hands of parents and educators. Filtering software in 1996 was, and in 2001 continues to be, the most effective way to safeguard kids from inappropriate Web content while safeguarding our First Amendment rights of free speech. Filtering software is safety technology, like seatbelts, for Internet surfing. Seatbelts aren't 100% guaranteed to save a child's life, but there's not a parent in America that doesn't buckle their child's seatbelt when the family gets in the car. Similarly, filtering technology may not be 100% foolproof, but our users say it is more than 90 percent effective and they demonstrate their satisfaction with our product by buying it, installing it and renewing their subscriptions year after year. Cyber Patrol's renewal rate is over 90%. Educators know that filtering software is reliable, effective and flexible enough to allow them to tailor it to their specific needs. They also know what filtering technology is not. It is NOT a replacement for the guidance of parents and teachers. SurfControl SurfControl is a leading provider of Internet filtering solutions for homes, schools and businesses. It acquired SurfWatch in 1999 and Cyber Patrol in 2000. Both of these companies were pioneers in the Internet filtering industry. Because SurfControl provides filtering products for all major sectors -- business, education, home and other technology companies - it understands why each market deploys filtering software. At home, parents purchase filtering software to protect their children from inappropriate content online. Corporations implement filtering software to maximize employee productivity, protect the company from legal liability arising from potential sexual harassment and preserve network bandwidth and security. Schools implement filtering software for ALL of these reasons. Clearly, the most compelling reason is the desire to protect children at school from everything from sexually explicit content to how to build a bomb and how to buy a gun. Increasingly, we are finding that schools are also driven by the issues of legal liability and network bandwidth. This was confirmed by a recent survey we conducted asking 1200 customers how important network bandwidth was in their Internet management this year. About 70% of the schools said that network bandwidth was important or very important this year. This compares to only 55% that noted its importance last year. The growing need to better manage bandwidth in schools has been given additional importance with the popularity of file sharing services like Napster and the widespread use of streaming video. What this means is that the majority of schools were already filtering and now even more find it an important Internet management tool -- irrespective of any law or government mandate. We currently have more than 20,000 installations of Cyber Patrol in schools and school districts, filtering over 1 million school computers. Business is booming. How Web Filtering works Despite the widespread use of Internet filtering technology and its longevity in the marketplace, a great deal of misunderstanding exists about how it actually works. The most commonly used filters in schools, like SurfControl's Cyber Patrol and N2H2's Bess, are category list-based products that filter by IP address or domain name. In the case of Cyber Patrol, human reviewers, who are parents, teachers and trained professionals, build the lists based on published criteria. We use artificial in telligence in the research process, but ALL sites added to our CyberNOT list of inappropriate content have been reviewed by a person. This is an important point because it means there is no confusion over chicken breasts and human ones. Some products filter at the root, or domain, level. More sophisticated filters like Cyber Patrol allow restrictions to be set at directory or page levels, so you don't have to restrict an entire website if one page contains inappropriate content. The CyberNOT list is divided into 12 categories: Violence/Profanity, Partial Nudity, Full Nudity, Sexual Acts, Gross Depictions; Intolerance; Satanic/Cult, Alcohol & Tobacco, Drugs/Drug Culture, Militant/Extremist, Sex Education and Questionable/Illegal & Gambling. Other products used in schools offer similar categories. Filters used in schools and other institutions are usually server-based and integrate with existing network users and groups for ease of administration and security. In our case, we offer standalone versions of Cyber Patrol for parents at home and server-based solutions for schools. A new version of Cyber Patrol has been created for Microsoft's ISA Server, the latest technology for Internet servers. In Cyber Patrol, keyword filtering is strictly optional. It allows more control, including blocking search engine results which can often be QUITE descriptive. Using keyword filtering can also filter out material that is not inappropriate, a condition often referred to as a false positive. Because of this, we offer keyword filtering as a customizable option in Cyber Patrol but never as the default technology used to filter websites. Typically, filtering software is sold as a subscription that includes the right to use the software for a specified number of users and a subscription to the vendor's list of inappropriate sites. As an example, a 100-user license of Cyber Patrol would cost a school about $1500 per year. We also offer schools an e-rate discount to help compensate for the fact that e-rate funds cannot be used for filtering software. Why don't you publish the list? We are often asked why we don't publish the list of inappropriate sites. SurfControl has spent thousands of dollars and six years of work creating a list that cannot be duplicated and is proprietary. No one has ever made a credible business case for revealing the list, and ultimately, a company whose mission is to protect kids is not going to publish a directory of dirty sites. I am certain that the other companies in our industry have similar feelings. How effective is filtering software? Filtering software is very effective. Independent reviews consistently show SurfControl's Cyber Patrol to be 80 to 90 percent effective in filtering out inappropriate content. That's much more than a passing grade. But the ultimate test of the filter's effectiveness is how well it meets the user's needs. Each parent, each school decides how it wants to deploy the filter. The most commonly used filters like Cyber Patrol, Bess and Net Nanny allow users to make their own choices about what is restricted or allowed. The user can choose which categories to use, customize filtering levels to individual kids or classes and even create their own list of content to be restricted or allowed. For example, with Cyber Patrol a school can restrict all sexually explicit content for younger children and allow our Sex Education category, which includes important resources like Planned Parenthood, for older children. Filtering software, including the server-based software used in schools, is highly tamper resistant. It is also designed to be easy to use, for the busy school technology coordinator, and easy to customize, to satisfy the teachers who need adjustments made to meet educational goals. Ultimately, in a competitive market economy, companies like ours are successful because we offer products that meet the needs of our customers. Our customers require, and get, the best tools possible for managing Internet access and our development team works every day to constantly improve the technology. SurfControl's Cyber Patrol Satisfies CHIPA SurfControl's Cyber Patrol software effectively protects children from adult material online and fully satisfies the Children's Internet Protection Act requiring schools and libraries that receive federal aid for Internet service to use such filtering technology. Thousands of schools and libraries
nationwide have been using Cyber Patrol and other filters for years. Our focus
was and continues to be on schools, not libraries. We do not market to
libraries. But we do believe in choice. We believe it should be up to each local
library to decide what is best for its patrons. The ACLU and the ALA have an interesting constitutional case regarding mandated filtering in public libraries. We had hoped they'd stick to the legal arguments, and not turn to the erroneous argument that filters don't work. Filters do work, and they work well. But they have not stuck to the legal case and the result has been some confusion. Some schools mistakenly believe the ACLU and ALA lawsuits apply to them. They don't. Many schools are waiting for the FCC ruling regarding certification on April 20. For the 60% of schools in this country that have already implemented filtering software, this is a crucial date. We believe that a simple self-certification is the best solution. We think that a message needs to be sent to schools to let them know the lawsuit is not about schools. This hearing and the FCC ruling may help clear up some of the confusion. Filtering software products like Cyber Patrol are technical solutions to help implement school policy and choice. SurfControl makes the software; our users make their own choices about how they will use it in their home, school or business. Our job is to meet the needs of our users and we will continue to do so as those needs, and the Internet itself, change and evolve. Thank you.
|
|||||||||||
|
