Safe to View IE Toolbar public beta released

Emerald Technology, Inc. — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 11:09:27 GMT

Safe to View safety toolbar released

What is it? Safe to View is an Internet Explorer 6/7 toolbar addin. It shows you while you are surfing the web if a site may be threatening to you or not. There are also over 40 categories of domains for you to choose the type of content you want flag as objectionable.

Did you misspell the domain name again? We could have blocked that parked domain from sending those two dozen popups your way.

Sick of search results that are 50% or more parked domains just trying to send you to another search portal? If we know about the parked domain, you will be notified.

Is it a web filter?

OK, so what does that really mean? Is it a web filter? No, it is a NOT a web filter. It does use the same database as our web filter, and you can use the same categories. But anyone can turn off an IE toolbar in about five seconds flat. It is a tool to inform you about the sites you are visiting.

Can parents use it as a filter?

First, I don’t like the idea of parents shucking off their responsibility on a piece of software and then saying “There, I am done as a parent”. The Internet (and life) is much more complicated than that. This is a tool to talk with your kids, explain to them the risks of sites and why they don’t want to visit those types of sites. Yes, it can stop them from going there. But, any kid can turn it off pretty easy. This is not intended to be a baby sitter.

Can I install it at my business?

No, this is not for commercial users. If you would like to do that, please contact us and we will make arrangements for you.

What are we doing with this?

As many of you know we do have a web filter product (Emerald Web Shield). And our spam filter service uses domain databases to block objectionable email based upon the domain categories. Well, we took those two principles and put them together. The IE toolbar uses the same database and categories to tell you about sites you may be clicking on. Safe to View is something different.

First, it is a technology demo. We have a lot of partners (and hopefully potential partners) that are always asking about our database. This is a very easy way to surf the web and see what we think about sites in real time.

And it also allows each user to participate and give feedback on sites they find. Hit a site as a result of a search and it was a spyware site? Users can report it to us and help protect other users. Second, it is a protection system. We want to help people make informed decisions about where they go on the web. Very soon the website will be updated with user feedback and rankings (ala Amazon’s feedback system).

And third, it is an information tool. Many parents don’t know if a site their kid is visiting is safe or not. Looks ok, but how do you know? We want to be that information tool to help parents make informed decisions. Your child comes home with a new site from one of their friends and wants to go. Look it up and see what other users think about it.

Feature Roadmap

We already scan an incredible number of URL’ and domains every day as a part of our core business. Part of what we would like to add to the Safe to View toolbar is a virus warning as well. We will download any EXE, ZIP, PDF, DOC, etc document we find on the sites and scan them and report our findings. This is good for us, and good for the Internet community at large.

Reach out to new potential partners. We want to find new ways to use the data we already have. Have a great idea? Contact us, we would love to hear from you and work with you.

Search integration is a big deal for us. We have a way to tie in to the search at Google and MSN and show you the red, green, yellow icons for each entry returned by the search engine. We feel this is just a part of informing users before they go there. Well, it is never that easy. A large (ahem, names will not be mentioned) search engine threatened us with a law suit if we modified their results in ANY way. So, we are trying to work through this and come up with a way to do it (while not getting sued).

We have the ability to build our own search engine. A Safe to View search engine would be a very good thing in my opinion. The problem is how to make money from it? How do we support it? And does the world want it? When 75% of men admit to having searched for porn while at work is there a place for a search engine like this? I don’t know. We are building our technologies, and leaving the future to a higher power.

Download the safety toolbar and give us from feedback. It is free for non-commercial usage.

Web filtration

Safe to View IE Toolbar public beta released