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Mediabyte |
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Nanny on the Net
Publication: The Hindu Business Line (Catalyst)
Date: November 23, 2000
A recent UNESCO report, titled Innocence in Danger, says that close to 17 million children has access to the World Wide Web in the US. Further, nearly 45 per cent homes with children aged between 12 and 17 have access to the Net, according to a study called Horizon Media Research, 1999. There's more - 67 per cent of teens online (between 13 and 18) and 37 per cent of children online (aged 5-12), have researched product items or have brought products online, reports *eShop Weekly 1999. Back home, the figures may have be as large, but it's a given that the Internet phenomenon in India is headed for a big time boom, a few years from now.
For all its 'democratic' nature, which allows everyone to access this communications medium, there's a flip side as well. "The dark corners of cyberspace," as Ajay Jaiman, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Pitara Kids Network Pvt. Ltd. (which owns Pitara.com - a web site dedicated to kids), puts it. The UNESCO study, in fact, also adds that close to 23,000 of the roughly 3.8 million Web sites on the Net advocate sex with children. Other danger zones exist in the form of sites with text or pictures that are objectionable (read: sexual, violent, racist or plain offensive), visits to chat rooms where kids may become easy prey to unwanted attention from adults, and inducing children to disclose personal information which could be used irresponsibly.
The worst case, however, is to do with domain names that are intentionally similar to regular sites, to attract the attention of the casual surfer. Take, for example, whitehouse.org and www.whitehouse.com. One is actually the site of the White House, the residence of the US president, while the other is an adult porn site. Even seemingly harmless words such as, say, 'animals' and 'teens', lead to objectionable sites.
It was all this and more that led Jaiman to develop the "Krowser" (a browser for kids), something company officials like to term as a 'Webb guard'. Observes Jaiman: "Being a parent myself, I could understand that easily accessible objectionable data on the Net is a high concern area today. There's a huge danger involved in what is the most powerful communication tool today."
What convinced him and his team, he says, are the limitations of filtering techniques and software, and the failure of computer algorithms in weeding out unwanted content.
The Pitara Networks team has worked on developing the Krowser for over a year, says Jaiman. While the Krowser is being made available without any charges at present, Pitara intends to begin charging for the programme three months down the line. The company hasn't decided on a price point as yet, but analysts say that Pitara could well use the Krowser as a potent revenue generator. The refurbished product will come with 'certain additional facilities', says Jaiman. These could include, for example, key product differentiators which would work as substantial value additions to parents and kids, is all he says, refusing to divulge further details at this point.
The Krowser, a specialised software developed indigenously, blocks access to any site that has pornographic material, which includes lewd pictures and text. Issues such as usage and manufacture of weapons and explosives, ways and means to cheat people of money and goods, violence, drugs, gambling and content dealing with illegal activity are also blocked on the Krowser. Finally, the Krowser prevents visits to any site that carries pictures or text which promote hostility, intolerance or bias against other nationalities, cultures, religions and gender.
The Krowser replaces conventional browsers (for example, the Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator), and through an administrative password, parents can monitor the sites their children are likely to surf. A 'green channel' on the screen lists names of sites appropriate for kids, which is updated daily, claims Jaiman.
While in India, www.pitara.com's Krowser is a pioneering effort, a handful of 'blockers' are available in the US. NetNanny is one that allows parents to download lists of 'good' sites. Then there are others such as SafeSurf, Cyberpatrol and Webchaperone.
While Jaiman insists that there's no package even 'remotely' close to what Pitara Networks offers, he mentions Krowser's 'differentiators' in that it reviews sites by trained people, which are re-reviewed by editors, and the ability to be set up as an integral part of regular ISPs. The Pitara team also does not expect clones, at least in the immediate future. As Jaiman says: "Competition is unlikely to happen soon, because it takes fairly long gestation periods to work out a package as comprehensive as this."
Funded by ICICI, Pitara.com claims hits of 10 million apart from one million page views a month (a figure it achieved last month).
For now, Pitara Networks does not intend to advertise the benefits of the Krowser. "We are providing the package free of cost to all those interested - that should generate enough trials and publicity for the time being," shrugs Jaiman. He adds that efforts to create additional visibility for the Krowser will happen closer to the time of launching the priced product.
Till then, Pitara.com appears to the determined to make the Krowser work - for itself, for parents and for children.
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