Safe Surfing Filter Glossary

This category may be used as an exception to allow access to bulletin boards, chat sites, or search engines where the author or publisher of these sites state that efforts are made to prevent offensive material from being posted or delivered.

This category includes URLs for non-profit and advocacy groups. These groups are generally incorporated organizations that exist for educational or charitable reasons. They fulfill a stated mission, benefiting the larger community. Shareholders or trustees do not benefit financially.

This category includes URLs that have non-pornographic images of the bare human body. Classic sculpture and paintings, artistic nude photographs, some naturism pictures, and detailed medical illustrations are included in the Nudity category.

This category includes the exchange of files between computers and users for business or personal use. An example of P2P use is downloadable, shared music. P2P clients allow users to search for and exchange files from a peer-user network. They often include SpyWare or real-time chat capabilities. P2P may offer bandwidth usage risks, or allow users to compromise network security by distributing proprietary or sensitive data outside a secured netw

This category includes sites that allow users to upload folders and files to an online network server. Personal network storage is a valuable service allowing users to backup, share, edit, or retrieve files or folders from any Web browser. They do offer risks, such as proprietary or sensitive data can be uploaded outside a secured network, or offensive and illegal content may be stored and distributed.

This category includes personal home pages that share a common domain such as those hosted by ISPs, University/Education servers, Free Web Page hosts, etc. Blogging sites are also included. Personal home pages present a risk to viewers because content ranges from harmless to offensive, yet these pages are not highly trafficked, making them difficult to categorize and provide coverage for each personal page.

This category includes sites that typically arrive in hoax e-mail established only to steal users’ account information. These sites falsely represent themselves as legitimate company Web sites in order to deceive and obtain user account information that can be used to perpetrate fraud or theft.

This category includes URLs covering political parties, individuals in political life, and opinion on various topics.

This category includes URLs that contain materials that are intended to be sexually arousing or erotic. This includes fetish pages, animation, cartoons, stories, and child pornography.

This category includes URLs that serve as a starting point for users when they get connected to the Web. These sites serve as major gateways or directories to content on the

This category includes URLs that contain crude, vulgar, or obscene language or gestures.

This category includes URLs with pictures that include alluring or revealing attire, lingerie and swimsuits, or supermodel photo collections but do not involve nudity.

Sites in this category have to do with religious topics and beliefs in human spirituality.

Sites in this category provide information about gaining remote access to a program, online service or an entire computer system. While often used legitimately by people who want to use their computer from a remote location, it also creates a potential security risk. Backdoor access is often written by the original programmer.

URLs in this category provide software that allows users to share computer resources; this can be on company or international basis. Well-known examples are the SETI program and the Human Genome Project, which use the computer downtime of thousands of volunteers to analyze data.

This category includes URLs that promote plagiarism or cheating by providing term papers, written essays, or exam answers.

This category includes URLs that offer unfiltered, unrestricted, unverified, search engine results.

This category includes sites with sexual innuendo, humor, ecommerce, educational or medical descriptions or depictions of sexual acts, specifically those without the intent to arouse. Sites which contain material intended to arouse, fall under the Pornography category.

Sites in this category provide repositories of download copies of shareware and freeware. Shareware is distributed on the basis of an honor system. Most shareware is delivered free of charge, but the author usually requests that you pay a small fee if you like the program and use it regularly. Freeware is software that is available without any cost.

This category may be used to enhance productivity by keeping employees from purchasing products and services online. This includes URLs that specifically sell products or services online. Many Online Shopping sites pose a risk to users by offering access to items that would normally be filtered under other categories such as Pornography, Weapons, Nudity, or Violence