A report released Feb. 25 by the Responsible Netizen Project of the University of Oregon's Center for Advanced Technology in Education raises questions about the link between conservative religious organizations and several internet filtering solutions, including three used widely in public schools.

The report, titled "Filtering Software: The Religious Connection," examines eight companies' relationships with conservative Christian organizations. According to the report, three companies with a significant school presence—N2H2 Inc. of Seattle, Symantec Corp. of Cupertino, Calif., and 8e6 Technologies Inc. of Orange, Calif.—also market their products to conservative religious internet service providers (ISPs), while the other five companies have expressed conservative religious philosophies.

Of these latter five, four have begun targeting the school market in response to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires schools to install a "technology protection measure" to help shield students from online material that is harmful to minors.

Based on these connections—and on the companies' own descriptions of the categories their products are designed to block—the university's report surmises that conservative biases might exist in the way these companies categorize web sites when putting together their "block" lists. It further implies that at least one company, N2H2, has sought to downplay its connection to the religious right.

"The existence of these relationships ... raises the concern that the filtering products used in schools are inappropriately preventing students from accessing certain materials based on religious or other inappropriate bias," the report says. "This situation raises concerns related to students' constitutionally protected rights of access to information and excessive entanglement of religion with schools."

N2H2 spokesman David Burt rejected the notion that a conservative or religious bias might exist in his company's filtering service. He also said there is no affiliation whatsoever between his company and any religious organizations, "outside of some of our customer base."

"We try very hard not to be biased—we don't have social or political categories on our list, as other companies do," Burt said. "The Mormon Church is a customer of ours, yes, but it is absurd to say that ... we reflect [its] views, because we have customers from all across the political and religious spectrum."

Eric Lundbohm, director of marketing for 8e6 Technologies, also defended his company's filtering service against suggestions of bias.

"Our success in the marketplace depends on our ability to [categorize web sites] accurately," he said. "We have thousands of customers that test that [ability] every day, and in a free-market society, the [companies] that meet their customers' needs the best will survive. If bias existed, the marketplace would weed us out. Our customers would say [our service] was not the solution they were paying us to provide."