The companies and their friends are just relieved to see policymakers finally agreeing with the Supreme Court that the best protectors of kids are parents, not bureaucrats. Available already are programs such as CyberPatrol and SurfWatch, which let parents block not just sexually explicit material, but sites that feature violence, gambling, bigotry and drugs in any combination. Most filter programs work by blocking a defined list. Others, like newcomer Web Chaperone, rely on software to scan content on the fly, recognizing objectionable words or elements of images on a page. The problem is that none of the programs can truly do the job.
Lists can never be complete or up to date in the quickly changing world of the Internet.
Some of the packages that parents can use offer techniques other than filtering. Programs such as Cyber Snoop and Disk Tracy record Internet explorations so that parents can review the sites their kids have been visiting. The events of the past week reminded me of a recent talk I made to a parents group about keeping kids safe online. I was a real bummer. It's work protecting children.