This agile content filter works in both home and small business environments and features a GUI that will please anyone trying to reduce help desk calls.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [July 25, 2005]

Salt Lake City, Utah-based ContentWatch says it sells "peace of mind" and you should probably say the same. You might also want to offer a filtering product like the company's ContentProtect 2.0.

Filtering products tend to be either lists like KidsNet (see To Protect My Daughter) or analysis engines which use heuristics or even optical scanning (see Ready to Go Right Out of the Orangebox). ContentProtect uses both lists and analysis to filter the web.

In addition the administrator (at a small business) or parent (for a home user) controls a filter that sorts sites into 28 categories, each of which can be blocked. Each user has their own filtering profile. The application can also filter out IM, P2P (though applications specifically designed to thwart such filtering can get through), newsgroups, and even the internet itself.

The company touts its easy to use interface and easy to understand reporting GUI. "Most companies simply display the logs," notes Scott Nelson, ContentWatch vice president of marketing. "We decided to use flash."

Flash provides an interface that is intuitive and easy to use. As ISPs pare costs and increase automation, ease of use translates into fewer support calls, a key performance metric for any value-added service.

The application is client-based. It requires each user to log on to activate it. The application can be tied to browser use, preventing internet use without a logon, or logon can be automatic. Each user gets their own whitelist and blacklist, and further customization options are available.

The application runs on Windows 2000 or XP. It requires a 133 MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM. The client requires 60 MB of disk space. It is compatible with IE 5.5 or higher and Netscape 6.0 or higher.

Pricing and availability
An updated version of the product, ContentProtect 2.0, will be released in the coming weeks.

Pricing for ISPs was not available, but Nelson notes the company's smallest ISP customer has 300 customers. The product was originally designed for sale directly to small businesses, and ISPs are not a large segment of the customer base.

Retail pricing for the product is on an annual subscription basis at $39.99 per year. A 14 day free trial is available, and ISP considering the product should use the trial to take a look at the elegant GUI, if nothing else.

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