EPIC's study was based on a side-by-side comparison of an unfiltered Internet search engine (AtltaVista) with a filtered search engine. According to Net Shepherd, Inc., its Family Search retrieval service screens out material that is "inappropriate and/or objectionable for average user families." EPIC tested both search engines using such search phrases as the "American Red Cross," the "National Aquarium," and "Thomas Edison." The study found that the filtered search engine typically blocked access to 99 percent of the documents containing those phrases when compared with results returned by AltaVista.
Okay, I had to try this one out for myself, and I had a perfect search term, one I had used before with some success: megayacht . A megayacht is a boat over roughly 100 feet in length, generally costing several million dollars. I remember dimly a fascination with things big and powerful in my childhood, so I figured it would be an excellent search term - especially since following a search for these terms produced absolutely no offensive material whatsoever (*). It turns out that, for some reason, people who talk about megayachts don't seem frightfully sex-mad (at least while talking about megayachts), and few could find any offensive material in descriptions of super-rugged hatches, doors and shore power converters. Here's a typical page I found in AltaVista but not Net Shepherd: (WARNING: If you find a charter rate of $ 85,000 plus a week offensive, DO NOT under any circumstances click on the link!) http://www.superyachts.com/bigeagle/index.htm An admittedly cursory view of the results of the search from Net Shepherd shows the reason for this little problem: Each response was apparently indiviually rated by Net Shepherd's staff. Yikes. Have they ever heard of sysiphus? (And can I spell him?) D (*) I suppose some people would say that a megayacht is evidence of obscene wealth. In that case, though, Net Shephard should have censored all occurances of the word, which it did not do.