…You Will be Assimilated?

FHK has been following efforts by several conservative bloggers to avoid having their sites blocked by so-called web “filtering” services, like SonicWall, SurfControl, and WebSense. The 1389blog has rolling updates, as well: Stop Blog Censorship

We have now received an interesting bit of information from Foehammer’s Anvil, that two of these companies are merging. See WebSense to Acquire Surfcontrol. According to the press release from WebSense, part of their interest in SurfControl is:

All of SurfControl’s solutions for Web, e-mail and endpoint security are backed by industry-leading threat detection technologies, delivered by SurfControl’s Global Threat Experts who work 24/7 to provide customers with dynamic zero-day protection. The company protects more than 16 million users in over 25,000 customers worldwide, and employs more than 600 people in offices across Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Pacific.

The acquisition is scheduled for completion on October 2, and 3rd. LittleGreenFootballs.com, who previously was blocked by WebSense, but managed to get itself re-categorized earlier this year is now receiving reports that it’s being blocked as pornography by WebSense. Is it possible that the merging of these two databases is causing the problem, or is it something else?

It remains to be seen what affect the merger of these two web-filtering giants will have on freedom of access to information via the internet in many public places.

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