There are environments friendly to children, too

BY LARRY MAGID
Special to the Mercury News
May 3, 2001

There's been a lot of talk about keeping kids safe on the Internet, mostly focused on finding ways to keep them out of harm's way.

That's certainly an important and worthy goal but, in many ways, it's backward. Wouldn't it be better to focus on the positive instead of fixating on the negative?

Imagine you were about to take your kids out for a day at the park. Of course, you want them to be safe, but you also want them to have fun. Hopefully, as you plan the day, you're concentrating on parks that the kids will enjoy and which, by the way, are safe. When you get there, you'll keep your eye on the kids and be on the lookout for people and things that could possibly harm them, yet trying to emphasize positive play rather than obsessing on all the things that can go wrong.

Campbell-based SurfMonkey (www.surfmonkey.com) takes that approach in cyberspace. By setting up an online walled garden or virtual sandbox, it allows children to play and learn online without danger from the dark alleys of cyberspace.

The service, aimed at children 4 to 12 years old, does have a built-in set of filters that keep your kids away from porn sites, unmoderated chat rooms and other places that could bring them harm. But the focal point is the SurfMonkey browser, a child-friendly environment with games, music and cartoons, along with links to pre-approved web sites. The browser, Windows-only software which parents must download and install, also has built-in chat, e-mail and video conferencing if your PC is equipped with a Web cam and microphone.

All interactive services at SurfMonkey are based on the company's ``cyberfriends'' system. Parents pre-approve the people a child can communicate with in e-mail, Web-based chat or video phone calls. Parents can also allow children to participate in public chat rooms that are moderated by contractors who, according SurfMonkey senior vice president Cynthia Money, have gone through background checks.

If a child says anything inappropriate or if the monitor has any reason to believe that an inappropriate adult visitor is lurking, the monitor is empowered to kick the person out and, if necessary, suspend the individual's online privileges.

Although it controls Web-based chat and e-mail, SurfMonkey doesn't block AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Outlook or any other non-Web based service. So just because your kids are on a machine protected by SurfMonkey doesn't mean they're 100 percent safe. Parental guidance is still essential.

In addition to the walled garden, SurfMonkey blocks access to the usual cast of adult sites that Internet filtering programs block. But SurfMonkey's filtering takes place on the company's servers, not on your individual PC. That makes it easier for the company to update the list of inappropriate sites.

Another advantage to server-based filtering is that a parent can control a child's access privileges by visiting SurfMonkey's Web site from any browser on any computer. So, while you're at work, you can control what your kid can do at your home PC or any PC that is running the SurfMonkey software. So if your kid were at a friend's house or a school running SurfMonkey, he or she would log on with the same privileges and restrictions as at home.

Of course, that can only happen if the software is running on that particular computer.

As with most filtering systems, parents can override the defaults by blocking a site that SurfMonkey doesn't typically block or allowing one that the site usually blocks. As a test, I used the controls to successfully block Disney.com and allow access to Playboy.com. However, when I got to the Playboy site, there were none of the usual graphics.

That's because the service also has a content filtering agent that blocks certain types of objectionable content regardless of whether the site itself is blocked. It's not based on an analysis of the images -- that technology is still a bit crude -- but of the words surrounding any images on the page. The content filter can be turned off, but it's on by default.

Although I was able to get to Playboy's main page, I wasn't able to get to any of its other pages, including a review of a PG-rated movie. In this case, all I wanted to do was read an article. Really!

The service also kept me out of an artistic Web site with tasteful nudes. The reason, in this case, was because the word ``nude'' appeared in the URL. SurfMonkey, according to vice president, Ashok Agarwal, blocks sites based on certain words. There are ``black words'' including ``nude'' that are blocked completely and gray words, like ``breast'' that are only blocked if they are used in conjunction with a black word. So, a breast cancer site would get through but not a site that had the word ``breast'' and the word ``nude.''

As I've said in the past, filtering is an inexact science. People who create the filters are generally well meaning and, to a large extent, they do what they're supposed to do, but I've never seen a filter that doesn't overblock and underblock.

If SurfMonkey were just a filtering service, I'd yawn and lump it with all the other filtering programs and services, but the fact that it emphasizes the positive, by providing a well-crafted environment that's fun and entertaining, elevates it to a new level.

Maybe it's just a philosophical approach, but I'm a big fan of steering kids toward Web experiences that are positive rather than spending a lot of resources on trying to keep them away from places that aren't so great. I certainly understand the need to block objectionable content, but it's nice to see it being done by a service with a cute front end and a positive approach.

The SurfMonkey software and service is free until July. After that, there will be $5.95 monthly subscription fee for up to three children per household.