Cyber Patrol blocks access to Yahoo...

[Filtering Facts]

At 07:36 PM 11/17/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Read it and weep...
>
>Cyber Patrol deflects Yahoo rumor
>By Courtney Macavinta
>NEWS.COM
>November 17, 1997, 2:05 p.m. PT
>URL: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,16471,00.html
>
  
Unfortunately, your posting snipped out CyberPatrol's very plausible
explanation:

                "Yahoo was listed in the "CyberNOT" search engine
                by mistake as a result of a separate project Cyber
                Patrol was commissioned to do for Prodigy. Cyber
                Patrol created a category called "search engines"
                specifically for the online service's own use. For
                example, Prodigy could allow its customers to
                block access to all or some search engines. But
                during the process of creating the category, Yahoo
                was accidentally listed in the CyberNOT search
                engine, which all Net users can access, making it
                appear that Cyber Patrol itself was shielding its
                users from Yahoo by default."

Whether or not CP recently blocked Yahoo can easily be tested: ask anyone
who has a version of CP that hasn't been updated in the last few days to
turn on 
all the categories and try to access yahoo.

This was in fact, partly verified by people who attempted to get a "blocked
by CyberPatrol" message when accessing Yahoo, with their versions of CP, and
failed.  These folks included not only pro-filterers like me, but the rabid
"anti-censorware" crowd on the Fight-Censorship newsgroup.




*****************************************************************************
David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org