Open DNS CEO David Ulevitch told XBIZ that the ability to block adult sites from their network was at the top of the list of requests from Open DNS clients.
“The attitude is that while these sites might be fine to view from home, at the office they are not-so-fine to view,” Ulevitch said.
The primary concern, Ulevitch said, is possible corporate liability introduced by employees viewing porn at work. In particular, employers worry about claims that the company is creating a “hostile workplace” environment by allowing employees to view adult sites from work, which could then be cited in a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Ulevitch stressed that while some companies in the content filtration and network security space may be driven by philosophical opposition to porn, his company is not one of them.
“Everything we do is about giving people choice and control,” Ulevitch said. “I would never advocate, for example, that an ISP filter out adult sites from what they offer their customers — unless they were marketing themselves as ‘the clean ISP,’ or something like that.”
In addition to offering the ability to block adult sites, the technology is designed to prevent employees from surfing sites that are known phishing risks. Ulevitch said that while no other general categories of high-risk sites — like free digital-music download sites — are specifically targeted by the software, clients can use the software to block any specific sites or domains that they wish to.
Providing the data backend of the filtering software is St. Bernard’s “iGuard” URL database, which St. Bernard touts as the industry’s only “100 percent human-reviewed database.”
“We are extremely pleased and excited to partner with OpenDNS on this new service,” said Vince Rossi, president and CEO of St. Bernard. “Helping to make the Internet a more productive and secure resource has been a longstanding commitment of St. Bernard’s, and we look forward to extending our support to the community through this initiative.”