Ten projects are being financed under the European Commission's Action Plan on promoting safer use of the Internet. A new call for proposals for awareness actions and hotlines is also under way. The most popular filtering programs allow their users to freely visit the websites of arch-conservative groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America, which feature strident denunciations of homosexuality. But when those identical fulminations against lesbians and gays were duplicated and placed on personal Web pages, Cyberpatrol, Surfwatch, and four other programs quickly added the addresses to their off-limits blacklists. The V-chip can be programmed to block out all shows with a content rating adults judge unsuitable for their kids.
Retailers report that they hear little from customers about the V-chip.
Even the head of the federal task force that oversees implementation of the chip admits that the public has been slow to catch on to it. These programs are designed to provide various degrees of control over Internet access by children, at home, in school, or in libraries. ICRA has appointed Ola- Kristian Hoff as director of ICRA Europe and Ken Handley as ICRA's technical director. The board includes educators, policy experts and media professionals from eight different countries. What began as a rallying cry for free speech has turned into a legal migraine for three young Webmasters who publicized decoded material belonging to an Internet firm that filters smut from children's computers.