Filtering Standards & Solutions

ClearSurfUSA offers advanced filtering solutions that afford educators, parents and librarians reliable protection against objectionable Internet material. Identifying and examining the thousands of new sites that come online every day is a top priority at ClearSurfUSA and an area in which ClearSurfUSA distinguishes itself from its competitors.

We use a variety of techniques to manage our industry-leading site database. To find sites to review, ClearSurfUSA uses a sophisticated research process to continuously comb the Internet. This process identifies thousands of suspect sites every day, helping ClearSurfUSA find new sites to block and discover changes to existing ones. After we perform this daily search, our Review Team carefully analyzes and catalogs each site in accordance with the ClearSurfUSA Filtering Philosophy.

Another mechanism we use is feedback from our customers. Our filtering services feature a Request Page Review that allows customers to request that a site be blocked or unblocked. Each request is reviewed and individually replied to. This feedback helps ClearSurfUSA refine its list, involves our customers in the filtering process and helps organizations customize their own block list.

• Adults Only : Material labeled by its author or publisher as being strictly for adults. (Examples: "Adults only", "You must be 18 to visit this site", "Registration is allowed only for people 18 or older", "You must be of legal drinking age to visit this site").
• Hate / Discrimination: Advocating discrimination against others based on race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation.
• Illegal: Advocating, promoting, or giving advice on carrying out acts widely considered illegal. This includes lock-picking, bomb-making, fraud, breaching computer security ("hacking"), phone service theft ("phreaking"), pirated software archives, or evading law enforcement.
• Porn Site Material: Material intended to be sexually arousing or erotic. (See also Sex and Nudity)
• Sex: Images or descriptions of sexual activity. Any sexual merchandise. Sexual fetishism. (See also Pornography and Nudity)
• Violence: Graphic images or written descriptions of wanton violence or grave injury (mutilation, maiming, dismemberment, etc.) Includes graphically violent games.
• Chat: Chat sites, services that allow short messages to be sent to others immediately in real time. Downloadable chat software. (See also Moderated)
• Drugs: Advocating or promoting recreational use of any controlled substance. (Also see Illegal)
• Tasteless/Gross: Bodily functions. Tasteless humor. Graphic medical photos. Some extreme forms of body modification (cutting, branding, genital piercing).
• Profanity: Crude, vulgar, or obscene language or gestures.
• Lingerie: Models in lingerie (except those that qualify for Nudity).
• Nudity : Bare or visible genitalia, pubic hair, buttocks, female breasts, etc. (See also Swimsuits, Lingerie, Sex, Pornography)
• School Cheating Info Pages: Any site that promotes plagiarism or similar cheating among students (such as by offering term papers, exam keys, etc.)
• Suicide / Murder: Information on committing murder or suicide.
• Gambling: Gambling services, or information relevant primarily to gambling.
• Swimsuits: Models in swimwear, especially fashion swimwear photos.
• File sharing: Sites that offer file sharing tools that effectively bypass the Internet blocking and allow adult movies and copywrited music to be freely distributed.
• Free Internet Servers: Sites that offer "free" Internet access and dial-up software. This effectively bypasses Internet blocking.
• Proxy Bypass Sites: Sites that advocate a "proxy bypass method" or online tools to "bypass filtering".
• FREE WebPages: Sites that offer "free" pages for members, examples: freeyellow.com, homestead.com, myspace.com and many others. Reason: THESE SITES DO NOT THOROUGHLY POLICE OR AUDIT MEMBERS POSTED CONTENT AND OFTEN ALLOW EXPLICIT ADULT CONTENT.

• Education Material: Material under another category (such as Sex, Nudity, Violence) that has educational value (such as classic literature, sex education, etc.)
• For Kids Sites: Sites that are designed specifically for kids.
• History: Material that falls under another category (such as Sex or Violence) that is non-fictional and historically significant.
• Medical Material: Material under another category (such as Nudity or Tasteless/Gross) that relates to the study or practice of medicine.
• Moderated: A "Message/Bulletin Board" or "Chat" site that prevents offensive material from being posted.
• Text/Spoken Only Material: Material under another category that that is strictly verbal (i.e. text or spoken word). This can be used, for example, to distinguish written erotica from graphical "Porn" sites.

• Block search engine results based on key words.
• Block urls based on key words.