Incline firm screens e-mail to protect kids

Incline Softworks' new software makes sure someone is watching each time a child checks his e-mail.

"The idea behind eMailParent is to create a safe environment for family email and to enable kids to use e-mail where parents might be afraid to let them use it otherwise," said Don Beadle, owner of the company based in Incline Village.

"It all started when I was talking to a friend who wouldn't let his 7-year-old have e-mail because he did not want strangers sending anything to him."

Launched a month ago, eMailParent works by grading mail that enters the computer and determining if it is appropriate for a child.

Mail that is deemed safe is sent through a firewall that the software sets up.

E-mail that contains words, phrases, pictures or links that might be inappropriate to the child are flagged, then deleted, sent to the parents or allowed through but copied to the parents.

The software searches every incoming and outgoing e-mail message and establishes if it is questionable based on three broad strategies.

It first looks at the sender.

Parents have the control of setting up lists of "trusted" senders, "bad" senders and "unknown" senders.

E-mail from a trusted sender is usually allowed through with no problems while a bad sender's mail is blocked, said Beadle.

Next the software examines what type of e-mail is being sent and if it contains attachments, pictures or executables.

Finally it looks at what the mail says.

Using dictionaries and phrase look ups, eMailParent determines words that might be considered inappropriate.

"The phrase dictionary is very smart," Beadle said.

"For example it will grade 'chicken breast' differently than just 'breast.' Parents might not want their kids talking about breasts but have no problem talking about chicken breasts.

"The software can be used as training wheels," Beadle added.

"You take the 7- or 8-year-old and might have policy that rejects anything except e-mail from grandma or the teacher.

As they mature you can start relaxing the restrictions giving more and more privileges."

Parents can set guidelines appropriate for the family.

The program comes with four preset policies for children G, PG, PG-13 and R.With the G level, one bad word can trigger a block; at the R level, almost all e-mail is allowed through.

If the four preset policies don't fit a parent's criteria, eMailParent can be customized.

"The parents have complete control," Beadle said.

"They can go in and edit dictionaries by adding more words that they feel are inappropriate or eliminate words they feel are appropriate.

They can also change the grading and the policies."

Beadle said that AOL and MSN are his firm's biggest competitors, as a combined 35 to 40 percent of e-mail customers using one or the other.

The market for eMailParent is the other 60 percent of the market especially those DSL or cable modems because they usually aren't customers of AOL or MSN.

While Outlook and Outlook Express both have filtering rules, Beadle said it's easy for kids to turn them off, and they're not easy to customize.

Incline SoftWorks began its marketing campaign on Feb.

4 in some traditional sources.

"Instead of using means like CompUSA we are targeting parent organizations," Beadle said.

"Our first advertising is in Manhattan, N.Y., in a school advisory letter that goes to a complete hundred thousand parents."

Though the target market is parents, Beadle said he can see why some kids might want eMailParent.

"Some kids will want this because parents wouldn't let them have e-mail before," he said.

Beadle began using computers in college and after graduation worked with the county generating database engines.

He later developed hardware for barcode scanners and worked in software application development.

Before attempting to retire, Beadle worked for 10 years as an outsource engineer providing equipment to companies such as Cisco Systems and Lockheed Martin Corp.

Coming out of retirement, Beadle and his brother Tom designed the first product for Incline SoftWorks, eMailBoss, a software program that sorts incoming mail in Outlook.

EMailBoss, which is still available, is designed to limit the amount of junk mail that comes through.

Beadle said that while designing the program he learned that 50 to 80 percent of all e-mail can be classified as junk while only 10 percent is readable.

Beadle said that Incline SoftWorks will continue to update both eMailBoss and eMailParent.

He also said he hopes that the company can partner with DSL or cable modem companies.

"There is no reason why a company should lose customers because it does not have parental controls for e-mail," he said.