Web filtering used by almost one in five Japanese
The number in the headline is quite surprisingly high, I feel, as revealed by this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into web filtering. The survey was specifically looking at service for blocking web pages with content deemed to be harmful.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 4th of August 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixty or older.
Sadly, details of why people use filtering services was not described. What it for protection from viruses, to stop their children accessing unsuitable material, or what? Without purchasing the full survey results we will never know.
Research results
Q1: Do you use a service for filtering harmful sites on your home computer? (Sample size=300)
Yes (to SQ1) 17.7% No (to SQ1) 82.3% Q1SQ1: What sort of filtering service are you currently using? (Sample size=53)
Software service 46.0% Hardware service (USB key, etc) 9.5% Provider service 34.9% Online service 9.5% Other 0.0% The most popular software package was Norton Add-on Pack for Norton Internet Security, with 13 users, then iFilter with 7 users.
Q1SQ2: Why don’t you use a filtering service? (Sample size=247)
Don’t feel it’s necessary 67.6% Bothersome to set up 24.7% Expensive 8.5% Other 7.3%
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Nick Ramsay said,
August 12, 2008 @ 02:28
Funny you should bring this up. I got an email from an English teacher at a Japanese junior high school telling me Japansoc.com was blocked by “webfilter”. Hooray for technology! Thank goodness Japanese teenagers are blocked from all the unsuitable material on JapanSoc!
Jason said,
August 13, 2008 @ 13:59
I know that the default filtering on Plala blocks such harmful sites as the iTunes music store and you have to navigate several pages to get to the page where you can deactivate it. My friend though she couldn’t buy music in Japan because of it.
Ken Y-N said,
August 13, 2008 @ 23:21
Jason, I use Plala but not iTunes, so I didn’t know that. In fact, I didn’t even know Plala had blocking! I can’t say I’ve ever experienced any block from Plala, however.