CYBERsitter Correspondence Round 2

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The MoJo Wire:

To: bmilburn@solidoak.com
From: Jennifer Hattam
Subject: CYBERsitter blocking policy question
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997

Mr. Milburn,

It has been reported to The MoJo Wire that CYBERsitter is currently blocking The Ethical Spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org). Please let me know if this is correct, and if so, which part of your policy they violated (i.e. why are they being blocked?).

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Jennifer Hattam
MoJo Wire Fellow

Solid Oak’s response:

From: terminator@solidoak.com (The Terminator)
To: Jennifer Hattam
Organization: Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Subject: Re: CYBERsitter blocking policy question
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997

Dear Sender,

Unfortunately, we do not accept unsolicited e-mail that is intended to be harassing, is politically motivated, or in any way offensive to the employees at Solid Oak Software.

Therefor[sic], we will appreciate your cooperation in not contacting this company again regarding these issues.

What we can tell you is that CYBERsitter has absolutely no "hidden political agenda", regardless of what our critics might try to claim. The site in question is blocked by CYBERsitter simply because it publishes or maintains links to other sites that publ[sic]

When a customer purchases our product, they have every right to expect and demand that reasonable efforts be expended on our part to insure that once CYBERsitter is installed, its operation be as secure as possible.

Any site that publishes information that lessens the value of our product to our customers, or makes an overt effort to subvert parental rights to supervise and control the on-line activities of their minor children, will be blocked.

Thank-you

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Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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