Digital chaperones for kids.(Filtering Software - Test)

Are you concerned that your kids will encounter sexually explicit material online? Recent studies show that such content appears on just 2 percent of web sites. Even so, it's easy to reach a site with X-rated content, via a major search engine, using terms like "Bambi" or "adult." If you use a more suggestive word for the search, you will be steered to hundreds of sexually oriented sites. Pornography isn't the only troublesome area. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, there are now some 3,000 hate-promoting web sites. Countless other sites accessible to children promote drug use, fraud, or bomb-making.

The federal government hasn't been effective at restricting children's access to sexually oriented content online. The Supreme Court struck down one law, the Communications Decency Act, on First Amendment grounds. In December Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (see "Should the Government Require Filtering?" on the facing page). This legislation would require schools and libraries that want federal funding to filter objectionable Internet content.

The only federal law offering explicit protection to young web surfers at home is the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits any web site from collecting a child's personal information without parental consent.

Who has the primary responsibility for protecting children when they go online at home? The parents of the 26 million U.S. youngsters who surf the web, that's who.

According to a recent survey by Jupiter Research, seven out of ten parents handle the issue by being present when their kids go online. Only 6 percent use stand-alone filtering software, products that promise to steer kids clear of undesirable material.

Does that small minority know something? Can a technological fix substitute for a parent's watchful eye? In 1997, when we first tested this kind of software, the answer clearly was no. But since then, the number of software filters has grown from a handful to well over a dozen. Internet giant America Online (AOL) comes with parental controls that filter content.

Is the present generation of filtering software any better than its predecessors? To find out, we bought nine of the most widely used titles, ranging in price from $39 to $80. Most are written only for Windows computers, not Macintoshes. We also tested AOL's parental controls.