Net Nanny has a new owner. LookSmart bought the company that makes blocking software intended to filter out adult and other "inappropriate" content from BioNet Systems for about $5 million in cash and stock, LookSmart announced May 4.
LookSmart chief executive Damian Smith called the purchase strategic and prudent for his company. "Strategic, because integrating our search technology into Net Nanny provides a stronger product for their users, while also providing LookSmart with a desktop platform from which to launch high-margin search and paid listings applications," he said announcing the deal. "Prudent, because Net Nanny is expected to produce positive margin contribution for LookSmart in 2004."
The deal includes all Net Nanny software and Web assets, including Pop-Up Scrubber, Ad-Free, and Chat Monitor programs. These block pop-ups, spyware, and profiling cookies, as well as monitoring and filtering instant message and chat programs.
Net Nanny drew a four of a five-star rating by PC Magazine in January 2003, and LookSmart vice president for product management David Kopp said that buying Net Nanny should help LookSmart produce better filtering solutions, given that even the best filtering solutions and parental controls otherwise fall short enough of perfection or infallibility.
"To date, both [Internet service providers'] parental control offerings and stand-alone software-based solutions have very crude integration of search and filtering, often providing un-filtered search results pages but then blocking access to the actual results... or searching such a small list of approved sites that the Internet loses its tremendous capacity to entertain and educate children," he said, joining the announcement of the LookSmart deal. "By extending the Net Nanny 5.0 product and adding appropriateness-filtered search results, LookSmart will produce a measurably better product."
BioNet said they would use proceeds of the Net Nanny sale to finance development and marketing of their BioPassword technology, a software-only authentication system. "Rather than pursue two divergent lines of business," spokesperson Nat Burgess said, "BioNet Systems can now focus on BioPassword.... [We have] done a great job at harnessing the improved capital markets in an innovative fashion, in order to fund a very promising technology."
