Tim May wrote:
I don't mean to be flippant . At issue here is a very real issue of free choice and contracts. Customers cannot "demand" a list of criteria for blocked sites any more than customers can demand a list of the selection criteria a bookstore uses, or a magazine editor uses, and so on.
Ever hear of consumer protection laws? There are many cases where consumers are allowed to "demand" information regarding their purchases...you were being flippant. One subscribes to a magazine because one knows what the focus of the content is and one chooses to receive that periodical; not because the magazine MAY have an editorial policy to not cover any stories on the "Oddities of Toenail Fungus in Bleached Blonde Yaks from Manhattan."
I make fun of Cyber Sitter and other Net.Nannies, but there's no role for "disagreeing with the fact" (whatever that infelicitous expression may mean) that they usually don't publicize their criteria.
Pardon my poor choice of words, please. Looking back on it, I can see that I could have chosen a better way to express my meaning. In case you did not get the gist, let me clarify it for you: I find it to be an irresponsible business practice for a company not to provide a customer with information on exactly what a product does and does not do. In a case where a product claims to 'protect' children from certain 'harmful' material, parents should be able to view these criteria in order to:A) discern whether they agree that the material is harmful and B) make an educated choice regarding which, if any, of these products they want to purchase. Saying that a customer can not demand to know what the product does is like saying that a car manufacturer should not have to tell potential customers if the engine block is made of aluminum, cast iron, or wood. Likewise, remember an agency called the FDA? Hmm, wonder if one of the reasons we have ingredient labels on our packaged food is so people can verify that certain ingredients are not in the products. Have any allergies, Tim?
If you can figure out their criteria, great...
Huh? Where did that come from?
But make sure that your "disagreeing with the fact" is not translated into calling for disclosure laws. That way lies statism.
There are already consumer protection laws. I don't think that this is a concentration of extensive economic controls in the State, do you? Really, Tim... It is neither my option nor is it my responsibility to change someone's little paranoid mind should they confuse consumer protection with statism, that is a job for a psychiatrist or a professor. Scott R. Brower http://www.infowar.com http://www.efflorida.org