The Hamburg-based Pan Amp AG is offering schools in Bavaria a pilot project for filtering out Internet content that could be harmful to young people. This pilot project is being carried out in coordination with the Bavarian State Ministry for Teaching and Culture in the framework of the federal "Schools on the Net" initiative.

All 4300 educational institutions in Bavaria with Internet access can take part in the most comprehensive pilot operation for Internet filtering in Germany to date.

The speaker for the company, Michael M. Maren, told de.internet.com that content which is sexist, which glamorizes violence, which is neo-fascist or which instructs people in terrorist activity will be blocked. Experience shows that there are numerous sites on the Internet whose blockage is advocated by people regardless of their political point of view. This includes f.e.suicide chats which provide students with contacts for suicide pacts.

The company will use its FAS product (Filter Administration System) for the statewide filtering. The distributed structure of this system allows for an unlimited number of schools to be included. With FAS, negative filters are used together with semantic keyword filtering.

"If there is a need to temporarily block or give access to a Web site, our research team can do this for that particular situation," Maren said.