Berwyn Police Site Inadvertently Features Adult-Oriented Material

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.eprairie.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterID=765

BERWYN, Ill.  As Internet access in the home becomes the standard,
civic groups have embraced the Web as a convenient way to reach their
constituencies. The police department in suburban Berwyn recently put
up a Web site (http://www.berwynil.com), too, but inadvertently linked
to sites it would have found otherwise objectionable.

Recently, Berwyn Police Department officials advertised its one-year
old Web site in the Berwyn Neighborhood Watch newsletter. The site
features links to the police department, the Explorers program and
neighborhood watch information.

Hosted by free Web hosting service Fortunecity.com
(http://www.fortunecity.com), Berwynil.com features a link labeled
More Sites Like This prominently at the top of the site. Instead of
other police departments, the URL linked to sites containing nudity,
information on hacking and tips on growing marijuana.

"I'm going to find out how that can be eliminated," said Public Safety
Director Frank Marzullo. "Obviously that's one of the things you have
to put up with on the Internet. Everything is inter-linked one way or
another."

Fortunecity.com offers free service in exchange for allowing an
advertising banner to be displayed on the home page. The banner ad
subsidizes the service with links to other sites.

"The link will take you to our top-traffic sites," Fortunecity.com
spokesperson Laura Sklar told ePrairie. "These sites are everything
from sites about the Backstreet Boys to Pokemon. Basically, its
personal publishing with the content generated by the user."

Sklar also pointed out that according to the firm's terms and
conditions, no obscene or pornographic material is allowed on its
servers. Thus, while the Berwyn residents might find the material
objectionable, it was not deemed obscene.

Rather than take the site down, Berwyn officials elected to do away
with the offending link. As of mid-afternoon Wednesday, the banner was
no longer visible on the site.


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