Local company lets parents filter kids' Internet access
[Home Edition]
The Atlanta Journal the Atlanta Constitution
Atlanta, Ga.
Apr 29, 1999
Michael Hamilton sat down at his home computer one morning, logged onto the Internet and gagged on his coffee. Coming across the screen, just a few feet from his two children, were explicit pornographic pictures.
"It was disgusting, and scary," Hamilton recalled. "My wife and I had gone out to dinner the night before, and the baby-sitter went into this offensive material. The next morning, I was spammed by all this pornographic e-mail."
The experience planted the germ of an idea that has become Lynxus, an Internet server that screens out more than 600,000 sites connected to pornography, hate, cults and drugs.
Hamilton and colleague Tom Arcuragi drew on their experience in the entertainment industry to create a product any parent can love. Advertising and production expert Hamilton snagged Emmy nominations for his work on "Magnum P.I." and "Wings"; Arcuragi produced a soap opera for Turner Broadcast Systems
and has staged marketing and product events for major companies from Coca-Cola to Reebok.
"We're fathers; that's where it came from," said Hamilton, who lives in New Jersey. "We found we had a lot of shared interests and values and that we're both hands-on parents."
The two dads launched Lynxus last December. From a graffiti-covered warehouse on Krog Street in Inman Park, 42 employees provide technological support to customers in 10 cities where parents are making sure their kids are safe from cyberspace garbage.
"If you've got kids, you should have some concern about what they're getting into," said Arcuragi, who lives in the Lenox Park area. "This is a filtering system that parents can trust, so they can sleep at night."
At the same time, Lynxus allows kids access to all the neat stuff on the Internet. It also gives parents the option of having their own non-filteredaccess. The service is available for $15.95 a month, after an initial $25 setup fee.
The company has grown slowly since its debut. The majority of its clients are individuals like Gilda Watters, a Fairburn mother of two, who found out about Lynxus through its unusual marketing strategy: offering a $25donation to religious and nonprofit groups for each individual they sign
up. Watters, who serves on the finance committee of Headland Heights United Methodist Church in East Point, first liked the idea of making some money with Lynxus but soon became a customer.
"I decided as the parent of a 13- and 6-year-old, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have in my home," said Watters. "It allows my children to use the Internet freely without me worrying about pornography and all the other things they can run across so easily. We had a very frank conversation, and I explained why our e-mail was changing. My son knows we're limited, and it keeps him out of trouble."
In addition to providing a filtered server to individuals, Lynxus has a business version that cuts employees off from chat rooms and pornographic sites. "We signed up 32 business in our first month," said Arcuragi.
Though the Lynxus list of filtered sites is enormous, it keeps growing. Members of the staff comb the Web daily, searching for any breaches and banning access to any they find.
"There's not a software solution," Arcuragi said. "You really need eyeballs to catch this sort of stuff." |
