[WEB4LIB] Re: Filtered by WebSENSE (was: Staff Web Sites)

[Andrew Mutch]

I'm convinced from the repeated reports of sites being blocked for no
apparent reason that despite the claims of many filter companies, they don't
actually review the sites that their robots discover roaming the web.  This
type of review requires a human to actually visit and evaluate a site and
that takes time which equals money - I don't think they want to spend the
money to do this.  The size of the web is overwhelming these products and I
would not at all be surprised to discover that many of the products continue
to rely on keyword blocking or algorithms that rely on keywords to determine
which sites are blocked.  Even the manufacturers admit as such:

"'Marc Kanter, vice president of marketing for Cybersitter, said that with
more than a billion Web pages, it's impossible to keep up with the number of
Web sites being added daily."

From:
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/internetcrime/1999/12/13/filter1213_01.html

If anyone else can explain otherwise why this might occur as often as it
does, I would appreciate hearing it.

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI

Jennifer Heise wrote:

> > Does their technical explanation make sense? - Yes, my site uses
> > redirection from a domain hosting service < http://www.mydomain.com >
> > which I'm sure hosts all kinds of material.
>
> Except that this has to be a fairly common problem. One wonders why they
> are specifically setting themselves up for this problem by the IP number
> filtering.
>
> --
> /   Jennifer Heise, Web Mgmnt, Lehigh Univ. Information Resources
> \ \ Linderman Library, 30 Library Drive, Bethlehem PA 18015
>   / Phone (610) 758-3072          Email: jahb at lehigh.edu
>
> "Comment is free, but facts are on expenses." -- Tom Stoppard