Panera Bread

[MossRoad]

you dont know how much freedom you have in your country and you take it for granted. I don't.

After speaking with many of my relatives that came over from Europe over the past hundred years, I'd have to agree with you on that point.

However, as others have stated, it is a private business. They are free to do as they chose and so are you. If it were my business, you can bet I would have some sort of filtering software if I were offering internet access. It would just be a matter of time before some moron would sit down and start loading graphic adult content in my public dining room and some family with kids would see it. I'm pretty sure I would lose more business from that one act than I would from blocking adult content.

So what constitutes adult content? Naked folks. Yes. Guns. Not to me, but maybe to someone else. Written text? Depends on the font size, I guess.

Life is full of choices. Make your choices as you see fit. Visit places that let you do whatever you want. What would you do if some fat hairy guy in a G string walked into the bread shop and ordered a bagle and sat down next to you and your family (he has a mesh tank top and flip flops on, so that meets the shirt and shoes requirement)? Would you expect management to ask him to leave? Personally, I wouldn't wait around, I'd be outta there!!!

 

[LMTC]

I agree with Prokop that MOST Americans are not vigilant regarding their freedoms; seems to me most folks just always assume that tomorrow will be like today. Incrementalism is incredibly insidious.....and effective. I also agree with the others that Panera can do whatever the heck it wants regarding the wifi it provides. As can I with my patronage.

I realize that little ol' me by myself makes not a whit of difference to almost any business, but I refuse to enter a business that is posted prohibiting concealed carry (which is finally legal in Ohio). I'll usually call them when I get home to tell them that I refuse to enter a store that advertises to bad guys that all the patrons are sitting ducks, and I challenge anyone who supports such a position to post a sign in their front yard stating "No Guns In This House". I would probably also boycott Panera (if I ever patronized it) as well, but I would not dispute their right to manage the wifi in that manner, even though sucn a position seems ignorant to me.

 

[MossRoad]

And, I'm not buying any crap about it just being impossible to stop all illegal activities on their access.

You going to hire someone to check each website before it can be displayed in your public dining room?

I work with about 300 folks. We receive (and this is no story) on average, over 55,000 e-mails a day. Check out this chart for the last 30 days. The purple is for addresses that don't exist... fishing scams. The red is for addresses that do exist... blatant spam. The orange(very tiny) is viruses. The dark green is most likey spam, but delivered with a SPAM tag. Only the light green is passed on to the users, and over half of that is sophisticated spam that gets through the filters.

So apply this same train of thought to filtering websites on individual basis and you can see that it would be a full time job for an army of people. Not practical from a business sense. So you buy a commercial filter, apply it as you see fit, and hope for the best because someone is going to work to defeat it shortly.

 

[Dargo]

So you buy a commercial filter, apply it as you see fit, and hope for the best because someone is going to work to defeat it shortly.

I understand your thought process, but the question remains, why bother? And, if you do, ban any reference to firearms??? C'mon, there are lots of other far more important and relavant things to block. I'm sure it's all listed in the initial setup process with the software installation. I still look at as poor management in the initial setup of the filtering software.

You do bring up a good question, and please let me know if I should start another thread, I am now getting dozens of spam emails each day about hot stock tips and others telling me that I've won the Nigerian lottery, or some guy with tens of millions of dollars has picked me to give his fortune to if I only pay the $500 processing fee to have it transferred to my bank. My question, what is the best "off the shelf, or even shareware, software to block this spam????? I don't want to change my email address because I use it for business, but these automated shotgun spam crap is honestly starting to get on my nerves. There is no "unsubscribe" and you cannot reply to them to tell them what you think of them. Fortunately, I don't ever recall getting any **** spam at all. I'm not complaining there! Software suggestions please?!

 

[MossRoad]

I would not dispute their right to manage the wifi in that manner, even though sucn a position seems ignorant to me.

See the above chart. Now you won't be ingorant to what happens on the internet at every company every hour of every day. The load of traffic on the internet is overwhelming. Most folks just don't realize it, because they only see a few spams in their in-box every day. When one of my customers complains that they get a couple spams each day, I whip out that chart and their eyes bug out.

 

[MossRoad]

I understand your thought process, but the question remains, why bother?

Because you will lose more customers from one customer getting upset about what they saw on some jerk's computer screen in your public dining room than you will ever lose by not allowing firearm auctions to be viewed in your public dining room. Common, how many customers do you really think that bread shop has that surfs firearms auction websites? It would be better to lose that guy(O.K. maybe two guys) as a customer than a bunch of soccer moms getting their java and bagle fix. Purely a business decision and a good one, I might ad.

what is the best "off the shelf, or even shareware, software to block this spam????? ..... Software suggestions please?!

Software would no longer cut it for us. We had to go with a dedicated spam filter box, a dedicated virus box, a dedicated spy ware box, and a dedicated whatever else I missed box.

 

[Dargo]

Because you will lose more customers from one customer getting upset about what they saw on some jerk's computer screen in your public dining room than you will ever lose by not allowing firearm auctions to be viewed in your public dining room. Common, how many customers do you really think that bread shop has that surfs firearms auction websites? It would be better to lose that guy(O.K. maybe two guys) as a customer than a bunch of soccer moms getting their java and bagle fix. Purely a business decision and a good one, I might ad.

Well, I'm no expert, but I do make all the business decisions for my business and I think it is a poor business decision, if you want to call it a business decision. I certainly see putting a block on all ****, but other than that, they open themselves up for a huge backlash for providing a free service for their customers. They are, in fact making a political decision, not a business decision. In business, it is a very dangerous precedent to make public political decisions. So, I strongly disagree with you that it is a "business decision", and I also disagree with you and I feel it is a poor decision, and not a "good one".

 

[czechsonofagun]

You going to hire someone to check each website before it can be displayed in your public dining room?

I work with about 300 folks. We receive (and this is no story) on average, over 55,000 e-mails a day. Check out this chart for the last 30 days. The purple is for addresses that don't exist... fishing scams. The red is for addresses that do exist... blatant spam. The orange(very tiny) is viruses. The dark green is most likey spam, but delivered with a SPAM tag. Only the light green is passed on to the users, and over half of that is sophisticated spam that gets through the filters.

So apply this same train of thought to filtering websites on individual basis and you can see that it would be a full time job for an army of people. Not practical from a business sense. So you buy a commercial filter, apply it as you see fit, and hope for the best because someone is going to work to defeat it shortly.

Yes, thats the way it is. Years ago we had a screen in our lobby - I work for AOL as off this morning, whats next, nobody knows - showing the number of delivered emails vs. the number of spam. The number of spam was always higher and as I said, it was 3 or 4 years ago.

 

[czechsonofagun]

My father is was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, I visited that nation and spent time there while it was still under communist rule.

I think your statement above is VERY CORRECT, the majority of the people here in the USA now take for granted the freedoms we have, they willingly give them up bit by bit in the false hope they will get a little more security each time, and they cannot comprehend what it is like to live under an oppressive regime.

I have to admit, Bob, I thought so - I tend to - as every first generation immigrant - quess by the last name the country of origin

 

[MikePA]

Well, I'm no expert, but I do make all the business decisions for my business and I think it is a poor business decision, if you want to call it a business decision. I certainly see putting a block on all ****, but other than that, they open themselves up for a huge backlash for providing a free service for their customers. They are, in fact making a political decision, not a business decision. In business, it is a very dangerous precedent to make public political decisions. So, I strongly disagree with you that it is a "business decision", and I also disagree with you and I feel it is a poor decision, and not a "good one".

Please go back and read one of my initial responses in this thread about what kind of sites are blocked when the Category of Weapons is blocked. People like MossRoad and I, who deal with this day in and day out, know what it takes to manage a product like SmartFilter in a large corporation. Why do people jump to the conclusion that it's a political decision?