2. THE POTENTIAL FOR EFFECTIVE WEB CONTENT CONTROL BASED ON CURRENT TECHNOLOGY Carolyn Watters and Michael Shepherd Web Information Filtering Lab Faculty of Computer Science Dalhousie University Marshall Conley Vice-President, Canadian Commission for UNESCO Senior Consultant, Knowledge House, Inc. Halifax, NS, Canada

3. Filtering label base Web doc URL lists keywords ratings URLs

4. UNESCO and the Information Highway The Balance Between Control and Access Web is important for exchange of knowledge, information & experience. UNESCO's INFO-ethics Programme stresses importance of universal access to information in the public domain.

5. Info-Ethics and UNESCO The Programme aims to encourage international co- operation in promotion of the principles of equality, justice and mutual respect in the emerging Information Society; identification of major ethical issues in the production, access, dissemination, preservation and use of information in the electronic environment; and provision of assistance to Member States in the formulation of strategies and policies on these issues.

6. A Caveat Although our paper addresses only the potential for effective WEB content control, we recognize that UNESCO has human rights competence in a number of areas. In particular, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stresses the right to information, including freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

7. Arguments for protecting children question whether regulation is best achieved through government sanctions or through a combination of industry self- regulation and individual choice. We feel that a combination of normative Codes of Conduct developed by UNESCO, plus industry self- regulation and individual choice best addresses the question. Hopefully there will be discussion on this over the next few days.

8. Filtering kidse-comm  Restrict access  Channel access  Prevent unintentional access  Assure validity  Secure transmission  Anonymity  Members only  Market exposure  Target users  Digital quality control  Secure transactions  Privacy of personal data

9. The Problem: the Web  1 billion documents (April 2000)  Average query is 2 words (e.g., sara name)  Continual growth  Balance global indexing and access and unintentional access to inappropriate material

10. What were we doing preWeb?  Channel access  Deny access  Check for age

11. Web opens new Channels  E-mail  ftp  telnet  List servers  Bulletin boards  Discussion groups  Chat rooms  Instant messaging  Web pages

12. What have we got to work with?

13. Filtering Application Types (1)  Client-side: Special purpose browser applications  SurfMonkey  Server-side: Child friendly portals  Yahoo, Lycos  Proxies  Black and white lists  Keyword profiles  Labels

14. Browser Application: www.surfmonkey.com

15. Proxy level (hidden)

16. Public Portals

17. Sneaky!!

18. Labels:Collaborative Filtering Search Engine Web Site Label Bureau A Label Bureau B Rating Service Labels Author Labels

19. What works well?

20. What’s the problem? Site Labels Who does them Are they authentic Has the source changed A billion docs? Black and White lists Ditto Text analysis of page contents Poor results

21. Filtering Application Types (2)  Authorized Access to Adult material  E.g. Australian plan  credit card proof of age  Anonymity protection  ZeroKnowledge  Non-Http Filters  Email etc.  Activity Monitors  privacy

22. Authorization: What’s the point?

23. Protecting Anonymity

24. The Layer Cake Model

25. So what does this have to do with E-Comm?? Balance of users right to privacy and business’s desire for access to market Building trust Guaranteeing digital content Building community values /profiles Building service layers on the web Restricting access Users rights to access/transparency of filters

26. More Info on Filtering  Industry Canada report  Content Filtering Technologies and Internet Service Providers: Enabling User Choice  http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/internet  European Commission – Info. Society Website  www.ispo.cec.be/iap www.ispo.cec.be/iap  Web information filtering lab  www.cs.dal.ca/wifl  shepherd@cs.dal.ca