[LINK] SurfControl woes

[Ivan Trundle]

Esteemed Linkers

Having just discovered that a major commercial website that I've been  
working on has been classified by SurfControl.com as a 'personal/ 
dating site', I'm asking Linkers if they have experience of or is  
using SurfControl in their work environment (or home, I suppose...)  
and has information or experience of what it takes to have a domain  
re-categorised (yes, I've checked out their website, and submitted my  
site for 'consideration', on bended knee with all due deference -  
I've had zero feedback to date).

I find it remarkable that sites are categorised in such a slipshod  
way, but then I suppose I should have known better coming from a  
background of libraries (and anti-filtering). Some years ago, my boss  
was continually frustrated by the various levels of filtering that  
prevented her from communicating, all because her first name was  
'Virginia' (a good thing that she wasn't trying to sell shitake  
mushrooms at the same time). We even took the whole exercise to a  
rather memorable Senate Estimates Committee on censorship matters,  
but the end result was not as cut and dried as we had hoped.

I digress. I'm keen to get some anecdotal evidence about  
SurfControl's methods of assessment, deployment, etc: if only so that  
the business that I work for can have a chance to compete. I even  
began to wonder if a competitor submitted our site's URL...

Looking for quick solutions, I've considered offering clients who  
can't get around their IT department's insistence on using  
SurfControl without fine-tuning (does it offer any on a local level?)  
the option to access our IP address instead, but have no idea if this  
is futile or not. Further, I was even considering setting up an  
alternative nonsensical domain to circumvent the problem for those  
with stubborn sys-admins.

And no, the site in question is NOT a personal/dating site, but  
rather a forum for collaboration and exchange of ideas. Oddly,  
SurfControl would have very limited access to the site that is  
currently blocked, since it is all wrapped up in a layer of password- 
protected - apart from the home page, which extolls the virtues of  
online collaboration etc.

iT

--
Ivan Trundle
http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742
skype: callto://ivanovitchk