CIPA legislation builds school interest in filtering, but there's little rush to buy

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, March, 2001

Filtering companies are seeing mixed reaction to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) from their school customers. Internet filtering is no longer an option for schools receiving E-Rate funding if the current CIPA legislation, passed as a part of HR 4577 at the end of 2000, remains intact. To summarize the extensive legislation that is still waiting for further clarification, schools and libraries seeking E-Rate funds must filter all student and adult computers at all times (though different levels of filtering can be used for the two categories); they must have Internet safety policies that comply with both the procedural and substantive requirements of the new policy; and they must hold a public meeting to help define that policy.

The legislation does not allow E-Rate funds to be used to purchase filtering software, but a review of the law by CoSN and ISTE state that funds are available under Sec. 3134, Part A of Title VI of ESFA, or Sec. 231 of LSTA. President Bush has also indicated that E-Rate funds may be made available for purchasing filtering software.

CoSN's and ISTE's joint interpretation of the legislation identifies October 28, 2001 as the key date for schools to demonstrate compliance or a process toward compliance. Those organizations have also stated that schools don't need to do anything yet.

John Walker, national education sales manager for X-stop (Orange, CA, www.8e6technologies.com) has seen the widest possible range of reactions. An IT administrator at one of the nation's 25 largest districts told him that he would shut down the Internet entirely if the district didn't have a filtering system in place by April 21st (the deadline for the FCC to prescribe regulations to implement CIPA).

Walker balances that reaction by saying that he believes schools opposed to filtering remain opposed to it. They tell him that they think the bill will be overridden, and they don't plan to do anything until they are forced to. Walker does anticipate growth and increased needs to help customers through the required discussions of policy and certification process.

Kevin Blakeman, president of Surf Control, Inc., says it is business as usual and most of the questions are coming from the press, not schools. SurfControl (Scotts Valley, CA, www.surfcontrol.com) sells CyberPatrol filtering software into approximately 17,000 schools and school districts. Blakeman has noticed increased interest at tradeshows, but he doesn't know if that can be attributed to CIPA or simply to heightened awareness of Internet safety issues. The company has always offered a discount to E-Rate recipients. So there are no changes to their marketing plans.

Allen Goldblatt, director corporate communications for N2H2 (Seattle, WA, www.n2h2.com says he has clearly seen heightened interest in filtering by schools. He expects a pause in buying as the law is refined to be followed by rapid growth. Market penetration of filtering products overall has been around 50% to 80%. He expects that to rise to 90% to 95% within two years.

N2H2, which has 40% of the market among schools that filter the Internet, responded to the legislation by creating filteringinfo.org, an informational site about CIPA, That site, incidentally, received a 2002 Market Engineering Web Site Leadership Award from Frost and Sullivan (see www.frost.com/awards).

N2H2 had the misfortune of having heightened market interest in filtering coincide with criticism of its alliance with Roper Starch (www.roper.com) to release aggregate, anonymous data on the most visited web sites. Goldblatt stresses that the company was founded on protecting kids, that the company would never jeopardize privacy, and that only schools who want to be in the sample are in the sample. Even so, to avoid confusion, N2H2 will be suspending these reports.