From: Interfaith Working Group Subject: IWG PlanetWeb letters Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 23:33:26 -0400 (EDT) July 14, 1997 Ken Soohoo Founder and Vice President of Engineering PlanetWeb, Inc., 1390 Villa Street Mountain View, CA 94041 Dear Mr. Soohoo: We are disturbed to learn that PlanetWeb's browser has filtering options which focus on sexual minorities, even though the most recent version has eliminated phrases such as "recruiting" and "alternative lifestyles" and has added filters to prevent access to sites with a negative attitude toward sexual minorities as well. We doubt that PlanetWeb, as a provider of general-use software, is trying to gain a reputation as an advocate of social stereotyping, but to single out one minority group is to ignore the reality that sexual minorities are just as diverse a group as any other, and implies that sexual orientation is more important than other human factors such as skin color or religion. We are also curious about how you will classify a site's content in regard to sexual minorities. We are particularly interested in your plans for dealing with sites addressing sexual orientation from a religious perspective. We invite you to visit our web page: http://www.libertynet.org/~iwg/ for an example of such a site. This page also has a collection of links to other sites whose classification you might find extremely problematic. We sincerely hope that you will reconsider such a biased classification policy. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators July 14, 1997 Bernard Stolar Chief Operating Officer Sega of America 255 Shoreline Drive Suite 200 Redwood City, CA 94065 Dear Mr. Stolar: We are disturbed to learn that PlanetWeb's browser has filtering options which focus on sexual minorities, even though the most recent version has eliminated phrases such as "recruiting" and "alternative lifestyles" and has added filters to prevent access to sites with a negative attitude toward sexual minorities as well. We doubt that Sega, as a provider of general- use software, is trying to gain a reputation as an advocate of social stereotyping, but to single out one minority group is to ignore the reality that sexual minorities are just as diverse a group as any other, and implies that sexual orientation is more important than other human factors such as skin color or religion. We sincerely hope that you will reconsider such a biased classification policy. Sincerely, Barbara Purdom Christopher Purdom Interfaith Working Group Coordinators -- Interfaith Working Group Religious organizations, congregations iwg@libertynet.org and clergy supporting gay rights, http://www.libertynet.org/~iwg/ reproductive freedom, and the 215-235-3050 separation of church and state.