"Kids summit" -- CNNfn interview with SurfWatch president

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

[I'd still like to hear more on the inner workings of next week's "kids on
the Net" summit from our friends at CDT who are sponsoring it. The lineup
of speakers includes Janet Reno, Al Gore, and the secretaries of commerce
and education. All joining together to Protect the Children! --Declan]

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                                     CNNFN

                         SHOW: DIGITAL JAM 19:30 pm ET

               November 26, 1997; Wednesday 7:51 pm Eastern Time

TYPE: INTERVIEW

SECTION: Business

LENGTH: 913 words

HEADLINE:  Kids & Cyberspace

GUESTS:  Michael Sears

BYLINE:  John Defterios

BODY:


    JOHN DEFTERIOS, CNNfn ANCHOR, DIGITAL JAM: Next week family advocates,
educators and industry leaders are coming together to discuss ways to keep
children safe in cyberspace.  One of the sponsors of the Internet Online
Summit is Surfwatch a company that makes blocking software to help parents
and teachers filter out objectionable content.

    Joining me now from Stanford, California to discuss the goals of the
summit is Michael Sears.  He is the president of Surfwatch.  Michael it's
great to have you on DIGITAL JAM.  Welcome to you.

    MICHAEL SEARS, PRESIDENT, SURFWATCH: Thank you, a pleasure to be here.

    DEFTERIOS: First of all, let's discuss how this summit came about.  Was
it a building movement that finally crescendo.

    SEARS: I think it is.  It's actually the outgrowth of what we did last
June with President Clinton and Vice President Gore.  In fact June and July
time frame the CDA was overturned.  The White House decided to take the
initiative and asked the industry to get together to see what we can do to
actually empower kids and enable kids Online.

    DEFTERIOS OK.  What is the happy medium here, Michael because that's
what everybody is really looking for because the Communications Decency Act
did stumble and we had people on both side of the debate wanting to stake
out their territory.  What is , in your view, is the center ground?

    SEARS: Well, the debate will continue, but the center ground really is
that it's all about kids.  What we're talking about doing here is bringing
together industry and law enforcement and public policy people and talking
about to empower kids Online and give them effective tools. Effective tools
that are also very easy to use.

    The idea behind that is how can kids actually get on the net, learn,
research, discover, play and do it in a really enriching environment. But
also we realize that there are a lot of safety concerns Online. That's
probably what we're going to talk about primarily.

    DEFTERIOS: How about the ACLU, they were raising concerns about being
blocked out here or filtration or censorship on the extreme.  How do you
deal with that side of - the people on that side of the debate?

    SEARS: It's a slippery slope.  The idea here is do we block, companies
like Surfwatch, do we block content Online.  The idea once again is we
target your typical 12 year old in the US.  If that 12 year old should see
a site or if that 12 years old needs to discover something we try to make
sure that we have all of our technology, all of our processes in place to
insure that information comes forward.  Such as, we don't block the idea of
breast, for instance, because breast could be talking about a chicken
recipe.  It could be talk about breast cancer.  However, it it's a sexually
explicit depiction or expression of that word that's where you come in and
use filtering software to block.

    DEFTERIOS: There's another side to this, of course, that kids are often
much more computer savvy than their parents.  How do you over that hurtle?

    SEARS: That's a major hurdle.  In fact we're talking about empowering
kids with effective tools, but those tools have to be very easy to use and
the ease of use isn't really for the kids because the kids know how to do
this stuff. They know what's Online. They know what's out there and they
know how to get there.  What we really provide are the easy to use tools
for mom and dad.  So mom and dad pointing and clicking and turning switches
on and off very easily can really control the family's environment.

    DEFTERIOS: As you know, this is a political hot potato for President
Clinton because he didn't want to seem extreme on both side and he would
like industry to work it out.  When it is all said and done, Michael, what
is the solution here?

    SEARS: Well, the solution that this market is all about is called
parental control.  Surfwatch started the market about three years ago and
the word parental control itself was important not only because it's the
software in the technology, but it because of those first two words,
parental control.  Mom and dad have to be involved.  Mom and dad have to
engage not only to help the kids Online, but also make sure that in chat
rooms or with e-mail or with explicit pictures they can really sit down and
talk to the kids and moderate what their kids are doing.  We're just a tool.

    DEFTERIOS: This is not a government.  Not to interrupt you, but we're
almost out of time here.  But this is, you're saying, not government
intervention then.

    SEARS: Absolutely.

    DEFTERIOS: The technology is out there to let the families tackle this
on their own.

    SEARS: That on and off switch should be in the hands of moms and dads
not the government.

    DEFTERIOS: OK, great.  How about your market share before we let you go
tonight?  How are you faring against your competition?

    SEARS: I think we're doing very well.  All the buzz that's been
happening over the last couple of months has helped our shares as well as
our competitors. We've shipped millions of copies, 7.2 last July. We
haven't done the survey lately, but we're clearly in the tens of millions
right now.

    DEFTERIOS: OK.  It's great to have you.

    SEARS: Great to be here.  Thanks very much.

    DEFTERIOS: And have a nice Thanksgiving holiday.

    SEARS: Same to you.  Take care.

    DEFTERIOS: My pleasure.  Michael Sears, president of Surfwatch, joining
us from Stanford, California.