N2H2
N2H2 Inc. is a Web-filtering company that electronically snooped on children as they surfed the Web in school and sold the data to marketers and the Department of Defense. They now say that they have stopped snooping.
It is not the purpose of the public schools to abet corporations that spy on the Web-browsing of schoolchildren. Public schools with N2H2 software have abusively extended their government power to help corporations gather information on unsuspecting schoolchildren. We urge parents, school board members, principals and teachers to rid the schools of the N2H2 software.
According to The Wall Street Journal (1/26/01), N2H2's Bess filtering systemknows where the students go on the Web and how long they spend there....Late last year, N2H2 began selling its data. The information, called Class Clicks, is aggregated, meaning it can’t be used to identify surfing habits of specific students, or even specific schools....for $15,000 a year, marketers and Web-site operators can get monthly reports that detail where kids are going on the Internet, along with Roper Starch’s aggregate estimates of the kids’ ages and races.
More Information
News Releases
Commercial Alert Calls Web-Filter Company N2H2 a “Corporate Predator”
Gary Ruskin | January 29th, 2001
Child Advocates Want Ad-Free Internet Filters For Schools
Gary Ruskin and Jim Metrock | November 3rd, 2000
Articles
Schools Aren't Market Research Factories
Gary Ruskin | March 31st, 2001
Related Articles and Links
Related Articles
Filtering Firm Stops Selling Lists of Sites Kids Visit
Ian Hopper | Associated Press | February 23rd, 2001
DOD Scolded Over Kids Web-surfing Data
George Seffers | Federal Computer Week | January 30th, 2001
The Army Is Watching Your Kid
Jeffrey Benner | Wired | January 29th, 2001