I knew it! Bloody filters
Further to this post in which I queried whether having a default filter for the entire country that banned access (supposedly) to porn, was really a good idea, the inevitable has now happened.
One of my lovely customers, the very sensible and respectable lady who created Ski Stuff* - a child safe website for parents who want to hire ski kit for their kids - tells me that one of HER customers, who has a Talktalk internet connection, has found that the Ski Stuff website is blocked by her Homesafe internet filters. Talktalk were, I understand, planning at one point to opt their users into filtering automatically, but they seem to have thought better of it after finding that only 22% of parents wanted things done that way. Now they offer the option to turn filtering on during signup instead, but the default is 'filters off'. But of course, some people choose to turn the filters on, as is their right.
None of this helps me much though, because now here is a website aimed at parents of growing kids, and at schools, and potentially, a pool of parent-customers who can't see it unless they turn their filters off (and probably won't do so, because they will quite reasonably assume the site is dodgy in some way).
I deal with filtering quite a bit on email, and with email, if your domain or server gets accidentally blacklisted for some reason, there are lots of tools and techniques you can use to communicate to other email hosts that, OK, this particular email may mention the words 'price' 'virgin' 'discount' and 'offer' and - shock horror - include a pound sign - but it is actually the holiday & flights confirmation that the recipient is eagerly waiting for, not some sort of 'discount offers on cut-price virgins!!!' spam. Not so much, apparently, with web. There seems to be very little information on what they class as 'adult' or why, or how to get off a blacklist if you find yourself on one.
If anyone knows how to request a review of a website that has been autoblacklisted by Talktalk filters, or even run tests on what gets blocked - I'm all ears!
*yes, I know there are, or were, some missing prices - sorry. The site has a content management system, the owner maintains it and sometimes you catch her in the middle of making updates, when she has stopped for a cup of tea or something. The design & functionality ideas are all hers, I just made them work with technology.
One of my lovely customers, the very sensible and respectable lady who created Ski Stuff* - a child safe website for parents who want to hire ski kit for their kids - tells me that one of HER customers, who has a Talktalk internet connection, has found that the Ski Stuff website is blocked by her Homesafe internet filters. Talktalk were, I understand, planning at one point to opt their users into filtering automatically, but they seem to have thought better of it after finding that only 22% of parents wanted things done that way. Now they offer the option to turn filtering on during signup instead, but the default is 'filters off'. But of course, some people choose to turn the filters on, as is their right.
None of this helps me much though, because now here is a website aimed at parents of growing kids, and at schools, and potentially, a pool of parent-customers who can't see it unless they turn their filters off (and probably won't do so, because they will quite reasonably assume the site is dodgy in some way).
I deal with filtering quite a bit on email, and with email, if your domain or server gets accidentally blacklisted for some reason, there are lots of tools and techniques you can use to communicate to other email hosts that, OK, this particular email may mention the words 'price' 'virgin' 'discount' and 'offer' and - shock horror - include a pound sign - but it is actually the holiday & flights confirmation that the recipient is eagerly waiting for, not some sort of 'discount offers on cut-price virgins!!!' spam. Not so much, apparently, with web. There seems to be very little information on what they class as 'adult' or why, or how to get off a blacklist if you find yourself on one.
If anyone knows how to request a review of a website that has been autoblacklisted by Talktalk filters, or even run tests on what gets blocked - I'm all ears!
*yes, I know there are, or were, some missing prices - sorry. The site has a content management system, the owner maintains it and sometimes you catch her in the middle of making updates, when she has stopped for a cup of tea or something. The design & functionality ideas are all hers, I just made them work with technology.