14 DAY TRIAL // Although it was proved that one in six men watches porn at work, there are some companies that have a simple goal: block pornography websites. Untangle is just one of these companies but, in comparison with the other firms on the market, it tries to do something pretty innovative: a testing session supposed to analyze the behavior of six major porn filters. According to a press release signed by Untangle, the Deep Throat Fight Club, scheduled for April 9 in San Francisco, will test the features of six products: Sonicwall, Barracuda, Fortinet, Scansafe, Watchguard and Websense.
"No filter is going to catch everything," said Dirk Morris, CTO and Co-Founder of Untangle. "So we're benchmarking the industry to give everyone a better idea of what to expect."
According to NetworkWorld, every user who wants to join the live testing session will have to give his written agreement that seeing porn is not a problem (d'oh). This is quite an important measure because some filters may bite the dust and show porn which should be actually blocked.
"Nobody knows how these filters perform in catching porn sites. They may only catch 80% or 90%. We want to get a sense, what is the industry benchmark?" Raul Mujica, Untangle's vice president of marketing, told the mentioned source.
What's interesting is that Untangle took the decision to organize a testing session following the recent studies which revealed that more and more employees watch pornographic content during their daily worktime. For instance, some findings published on the company's website say that "about one in four companies have fired an employee for misusing the Internet." However, the problem is not only about the employees because schools and universities are also exposed, so such a testing session that will surely prove the filters' capabilities is always welcome.