From: David H Dennis <david@amazing.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 1997 14:10:31 +0800
To: declan@well.com (Declan McCullagh)
Subject: Re: "Faulty Filters" report; anti-rating free speech alliance
In-Reply-To: <v03007806b0a7f42e9fab@[204.254.22.168]>
Message-ID: <199712010558.VAA25375@remarkable.amazing.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> EPIC's study was based on a side-by-side comparison of an unfiltered
> Internet search engine (AtltaVista) with a filtered search engine.
> According to Net Shepherd, Inc., its Family Search retrieval service
> screens out material that is "inappropriate and/or objectionable for
> average user families."  EPIC tested both search engines using such
> search phrases as the "American Red Cross," the "National Aquarium," and
> "Thomas Edison."  The study found that the filtered search engine
> typically blocked access to 99 percent of the documents containing those
> phrases when compared with results returned by AltaVista.

Okay, I had to try this one out for myself, and I had a perfect search
term, one I had used before with some success:  megayacht .  A megayacht
is a boat over roughly 100 feet in length, generally costing several
million dollars.  I remember dimly a fascination with things big and
powerful in my childhood, so I figured it would be an excellent search
term - especially since following a search for these terms produced
absolutely no offensive material whatsoever (*).  It turns out that,
for some reason, people who talk about megayachts don't seem frightfully
sex-mad (at least while talking about megayachts), and few could find
any offensive material in descriptions of super-rugged hatches, doors
and shore power converters.

Here's a typical page I found in AltaVista but not Net Shepherd:

(WARNING: If you find a charter rate of $ 85,000 plus a week offensive,
DO NOT under any circumstances click on the link!)

http://www.superyachts.com/bigeagle/index.htm

An admittedly cursory view of the results of the search from Net Shepherd
shows the reason for this little problem:  Each response was apparently
indiviually rated by Net Shepherd's staff.

Yikes.

Have they ever heard of sysiphus?  (And can I spell him?)

D

(*) I suppose some people would say that a megayacht is evidence of
obscene wealth.  In that case, though, Net Shephard should have censored
all occurances of the word, which it did not do.