From; http://www.pcworld.com/cgi-bin/database/body.pl?ID=970702181157 

 CYBERsitter Filters Out Privacy, Says Anticensorship Group by Brian McWilliams, PC World NewsRadio July 2, 1997 

 Does a software program have a right to snoop into your computer's Internet cache? 

 That's the question at the heart of the latest controversy between the makers of CYBERsitter, the Internet content-filtering
 software, and Bennett Haselton, cofounder of Peacefire, an Internet anticensorship group for teenagers. 

 Haselton recently discovered that CYBERsitter scans your hard drive's Internet Explorer cache when you install the trial
 version of the software; and, if it finds evidence that you've visited the Peacefire site, the installation will abort with a cryptic
 error message. 

 NewsRadio has confirmed this claim by attempting to install CYBERsitter, Version 2.12 after first loading the home page of
 the Peacefire site with Internet Explorer 3. The installation completed successfully only after we deleted the files
 peacefire.html and peacefire.gif from the PC's Internet Explorer cache. 

 Peacefire and Haselton have been critical of all content-filtering software and especially CYBERsitter, after its publisher,
 Solid Oak, added the Peacefire site to its filter file around the first of the year. But Haselton says the latest move by Solid
 Oak is a serious privacy violation. 

 "It's a very dangerous precedent to set to say that if someone convinces you to download your software and run it on your
 computer they have the right to make it do whatever they want without telling you," says Haselton. "I think that was, to a
 lesser extent, a case of blocking our Web site without telling their customers. They're actually scanning your hard drive to see
 what you've been doing before they'll let you use the program." 

 Solid Oak's CEO Brian Milburn, who wrote the original CYBERsitter software and is still actively involved in the design of
 the product, didn't deny that CYBERsitter scans a user's Internet cache when it installs. 

 Milburn reports that hackers have broken into CYBERsitter's encrypted filter file, attacked Solid Oak's servers, and sent him
 e-mail bombs. 

 "We reserve the right to say who gets to install our software for free," maintains Milburn. "It's our software--we own it, we
 publish it, we have an absolute legal right to protect our software from being hacked in any way, shape or form." 

 Milburn dismissed suggestions that the tactic violated a user's privacy, saying Solid Oak had no motivation, nor a mechanism,
 for gathering information about people who try to install CYBERsitter. 

 "That has absolutely nothing to do with any privacy issue whatsoever," says Milburn. "If Bennett Haselton is alleging that we
 get some kind of information sent to us, I mean that's ridiculous. If the program fails to install, I don't see how any way shape
 or form that would be an invasion of privacy." 

 But a number of software attorneys see serious ethical issues, if not legal problems, with Solid Oak's latest tactic against
 Peacefire. 

 "I would be willing to bet that this is perfectly offensive, but perfectly legal," says Michael Overly, an attorney with the
 California law firm Call, Clayton, and Jensen. "The question is, is it sort of morally or ethically appropriate? It sounds like the
 president of CYBERsitter has sort of his own personal agenda with his product, as opposed to just trying to target sites that
 are inappropriate for children." 

 According to Ken Wasch, president of the Software Publishers Association, Solid Oak's conduct violates a principle that all
 Internet companies should live by. At yesterday's White House Internet ceremony, Vice President Al Gore referred to it as
 the Digital Hippocratic oath: "Thou shalt not commit any harm online." 

 "Do no harm online," says Wasch. "CYBERsitter is doing harm online. What they're doing when you expand that to what's
 possible with Web-based technology, that has a chilling effect on the growth of the Internet." 

 Milburn of Solid Oak says the latest incident with Haselton is only of interest to reporters and privacy fanatics, adding that
 CYBERsitter continues to win praise from users and trade magazines.