I was going to post this on my blog, but I feel it's probably more productive to post it here.
As a parent and as an educator, I recognise this as an elegant *technical* solution to a very real problem. However, I do wonder about the consequences. Interestingly, the post mentions that "no other configurations are necessary at either the browser or search engine level for this user preference to be effective across the Web, which helps ensure the intended online experiences meet user expectations." I'd point out that the user in this case isn't actually the parent, but the *child*. By making filtering transparent, it frustrates the user rather than them seeing that they need to enter into a dialogue with their parent/teacher/guardian about levels of access. As someone who has implemented filtering in a school before, I believe that such systems should, in fact, *not* be transparent. Users should see that their web experience is being shaped and controlled. Filtering tools should offer levels of granularity, and access levels should increase along with web literacy. Again, while this is an elegant technical solution, I'm not sure it adequately addresses the *social* and pedagogical issues at stake here. Are we helping train a generation of web users to accept whatever restrictions they find in place, without question? Are we promoting web literacy? I'd love to discuss this further. :-) ----- Doug Belshaw Web Literacy Lead Mozilla Foundation _______________________________________________ dev-privacy mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-privacy
