Consumer Reports has come out with a useful evaluation of Internet filters for home use entitled "Filtering software: Better but still infallible" (June 2005). Here are some highlights:
I briefly reported on the ACLU Report Reader's Block: Internet Censorship in Rhode Island Public Libraries Ed: broken link removed 2011. Now I've read it more closely and have a bit more to say about it. Today I'll just comment on Section V of the report, Filter Settings.
American Libraries Online Ed: broken link removed 2011 alerts us to the newly released "Readers Block: Internet Censorship in Rhode Island Public Libraries Ed: broken link removed 2011," a report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
I haven't read the 21 page report yet but the AL Online piece states that the report finds "some libraries block material beyond the minimum needed for CIPA compliance"....SURPRISE!
I received an email from a library student, Jennifer Meharg, in the U.K. who found that libraries in her part of the world were not filtering according to their Internet Use Policy. She suggested her findings suggested my "half-empty" analysis was probably closer to the truth (see Filter Effectiveness - Who Cares?).
I've made some improvements to the libraryfiltering.org page that I hope you'll check out. It ain't perfect by any means but I hope you'll find it more useful.
The most important change is that you can now select the filters you want to compare AND the filter features you want to compare, then display it all in one view.
The Supreme Court has struck down Ed: broken link removed 2011 the Child Online Protection Act . Says Kennedy "For now, the law, known as the Child Online Protection Act, would sweep with too broad a brush."
See also the Legal Challenge to the Child Online Protection Act.
Yippeee!
Via WEB4LIB, courtesy of Don Wood, ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee.
Of course, I've got to say I told you so because I did....
"The release of filter modules by the integrated library systems (ILS) is another likely development in the filter market..." [from Chapter 5: What's Next For Library Filtering?, Library Technology Reports, March-April 2004 by moi Ed: broken link removed 2011].
So Dynix has "chosen ContentWatch as filtering provider" per the listing in New Product News, Public Libraries March/April 2004.