Web monitoring software comes in two types: active and passive. Active software restricts access to certain sites, while passive software records all internet activity. Both raise ethical and legal questions.
There are many different types of web monitoring software, intended for different purposes. Generally, however, web tracking software comes in two flavors: active web tracking software and passive web tracking software. Active software restricts what internet users on a computer can access and see, is used to prevent children from accessing sites deemed unacceptable or employees from wasting time at work, or for a variety of other uses. Passive software, on the other hand, allows users to do as they please on the Internet, but keeps track of everything they are doing in a log, which can later be retrieved by a parent, boss or other interested party to monitor how are people using the internet.
Active web monitoring software is by far the most common type of web monitoring software and includes products such as Guardian® Monitor Family Edition and Spytech® SentryPC. Active web monitoring software is often used with children, to make sure they can’t access sites that are deemed dangerous or objectionable. Porn sites, for example, could be blocked by this type of software, as could online chat rooms or other areas where children could run into online criminals.
Most active web monitoring software works by using a central database of blacklisted sites, then uses some level of content analysis to check a site before it is visited. Better programs allow parents or employers to add sites to a whitelist, letting them pass anyway, such as in cases where an online version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover might be blocked but needed for a school project. These programs also often allow you to add certain keywords to the blacklist, to prevent sites from showing concepts that a specific parent finds objectionable.
Passive web monitoring software is a bit more subtle, although many programs come bundled with an active and passive version. The intent of passive web monitoring software is to record all internet activity, so that a parent or employer can later look into it to see if anything has happened that they are not happy with. To this end, not only things like websites visited are monitored, but also chat conversations, incoming and outgoing emails, downloads, and even keystrokes as you type.
Simple software keeps all of this information in a central registry, which the person who installed it can later access. More modern software also often includes a remote access version, which allows whoever has it installed to actually see what the person is doing on the computer in real time. This way they can essentially eavesdrop on chat conversations and web browsing and can intercede if they think something that might be dangerous or unacceptable is about to happen. In a workplace setting, this allows employers to monitor their employees to make sure they are working on their projects when they are on their computers, rather than wasting company time.
Naturally, web monitoring software raises a number of ethical and even legal questions, which have been the subject of much debate. When you block access to sites, censorship issues arise, and since these programs often block sites with great impunity, completely benign sites can sometimes be blocked. When monitoring web traffic and chats, privacy issues are evoked and the question is raised whether a parent or employer has the right to witness private conversations, regardless of justification.
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