Washington DC – June 8, 2009 - The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) today announced that global IT security company and provider of high-performance content security solutions, Optenet, is joining FOSI as its newest member. Optenet provides content filtering and online protection technology for organizations and consumers in Europe, Australia, and North and South America. In addition, Ana Luisa Rotta Soares, special projects director at Optenet, will join FOSI’s Board of Directors.
“Optenet’s international presence will increase the global reach of FOSI as we look to protect kids online across the world,” said Stephen Balkam, CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute. “FOSI welcomes Ana as the newest board member who will bring a wealth of experience to the issues FOSI is currently addressing.”
In her position with Optenet, Rotta leads projects related to preventing children from viewing harmful and inappropriate online content such as pornography, racism, terrorism, drugs, bomb making, anorexia and bulimia, as well as other categories that parents or educators might find important to block. Rotta is also the secretary to the board of directors at Protégeles, an organization sponsored in part by Optenet and dedicated to running a hotline against illegal content, especially child pornography, on the Internet.
“FOSI and Optenet share a common mission that’s becoming more important by the day: to make the Internet a safer place for children,” Rotta said. “The sheer magnitude of inappropriate and harmful Web content makes it impossible for parents to single-handedly safeguard their children. Optenet is devoted to developing effective online tools which empower parents to safeguard their children from the growing number of illegal and harmful Web sites. Parents are, of course, ultimately responsible for what their children view, but they need the help of our industry to give them technologies that can make this a manageable task.”
Originally launched more than 12 years ago as an Internet service provider dedicated to creating a safer Web experience for minors, Optenet is now a Web content security vendor that brings the same filtering and security capabilities to service providers and enterprises across the globe.
About Optenet
Optenet is a global IT security company that provides high-performance content filtering solutions to service providers and large enterprises worldwide. Optenet’s technology protects more than 75 million end users around the globe, including the customers of many of the world’s leading ISPs and mobile operators, as well as employees of global enterprise organizations. The Company is a socially conscious organization, committed to eliminating illegal content on the Internet, protecting children and supporting government agencies and non-profit organizations that share the same goal. For more information, visit www.optenet.com.
About FOSI
The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) works to make the online world safe for kids and their families by identifying and promoting best practices, tools and methods that also respect free speech. FOSI’s members include: AOL, AT&T, Blue Coat, BT Retail, Comcast, Computing Technology Industry Association, France Telecom/Orange, Google, GSMA, Loopt, Microsoft, MySpace, Ning, Nominum, Optenet, Privo, Rulespace, Sprint, StreamShield, Symantec, Telefónica, Telmex, The Wireless Foundation, Verizon and Yahoo!. FOSI hosts an annual international conference to bring together Internet safety advocates from a variety of sectors, including global corporations, government, non-profits, academia and the media, to discuss the current pulse of online safety and emerging solutions that will enhance it.
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