Coalition Asks FCC Site to Offer
Balanced View of Filters
Civil liberties groups are asking the Federal Communications Commission to disclose the shortcomings of Internet filters in its new Web site that provides information on technologies parents can use to protect their children from harmful or inappropriate material.
In a May 13 letter to FCC Chair William E. Kennard, the Internet Free Expression Alliance requested that the agency’s Parents, Kids, and Communications page, which includes links to filtering companies’ Web sites, also link to reports about how the products block access to nonobjectionable material.
Noting that “several independent studies of these products indicate that the vendors often gloss over some of the serious shortcomings of their filtering systems,” the letter stressed that “an objective and useful information page must apprise parents of these findings.”
The Internet Free Expression Alliance is a coalition of 13 national organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Posted May 24, 1999.
|
