Kid-Friendly Search Engines Filter Content By Akeya Dickson Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 7, 2006; F07 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/06/AR2006050600159_pf.html It's not unheard of these days for a child doing online research for a school project to accidentally stumble into a porn site or someplace else that's too dicey for a parent's comfort level. Between e-mail filters, parental controls and special software, there are plenty of tools meant to help parents keep their children safe. The next target for fed-up parents: Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The upside of the modern-day search engine -- an index of Web sites on the Internet -- is also the downside. And when kids research a report by tapping search words in Google or Yahoo, chances are good that they may run across something they shouldn't see. Christine Willig, president of Cincinnati-based Thinkronize, said that one in four children across the country is exposed to pornography by age 11 -- often over the Internet. Her company's flagship product, NetTrekker, a child-safe search engine featuring 180,000 sites that are regularly reviewed by 400 volunteer teachers, has been in schools since 2000, including many in Virginia, Maryland and the District. Now, the product is being made available for home users for $9.95 ( http://www.netrekker.com/ ). Willig, the mother of seven, said children's potential exposure to questionable Internet content was the primary reason she left her job as a textbook publisher and joined the start-up Thinkronize. "My decision to leave was driven by my own experiences with my own children and stories I've heard from other parents and teachers," she said. Since then, the product has been used in 12,000 schools across the United States -- reaching an estimated 7 million students. School administrators and parents in other countries -- including Hong Kong, Turkey and Nigeria -- also have expressed an interest in the product, she said. In Pennsylvania, the search engine was adopted in school districts across the state. Exposure to inappropriate sites "was definitely a huge concern with teachers," said Mary Schwander, a library media specialist at New Hope-Solebury High School in New Hope, Pa. "Some kids did a comparison between Google and NetTrekker and found that NetTrekker was more favorable to use and quicker." Willig acknowledges that offensive and inappropriate sites have been found -- but usually by teachers and specialty software that constantly scan the sites, not the students. "With our tools in place, we have found porn sites, and we have found them before users," Willig said. "There's a Martin Luther King site that's now a hate site, really a KKK thing in disguise. There are those things that we have to look out for with a combination of technology and human review." That is the main challenge constantly facing John Stewart and Ryan Krupnik, the guys behind the family-safe search engine RedZee. The site filters out pornographic results and delivers targeted searches. "Ryan and I have put a great deal of time and money to make sure things are blocked, but we're really coming to a point where we need the general public to help us," said Stewart. "We can't possibly catch all of it. I would love to say we're 200 percent, but we're not." Their product features a "Report a Site" link that allows users to submit an objectionable site for review and possible removal from the search engine. They also understand the magnitude of trying to keep the Internet clean for children -- and are hoping that Yahoo, Google and other mainstream sites will become more responsible with the results they deliver. "Right now, nothing is being done," he said. "Maybe what we're doing can bring awareness and raise an eyebrow with the bigger companies." ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list medianews@twiar.org To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
