Research: Online Service Provider Assessment Project

The goal of the Online Service Provider Assessment (OSPA) project is to determine how fair, accurate, and inclusive online service providers are with respect to a variety of content topics and constituent communities.

The first online service provider surveyed by the OSPA project was America Online (AOL) and the first topic area was lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) content. Currently, the Alan Turing Program is expanding the LGBT portion of the OSPA project to other online service providers. The Online Policy Group is also expanding the OSPA project to other program areas, such as disabled, elderly, health (including HIV, AIDS, and cancer), race / ethnicity, women (including reproductive rights), and youth.

The expanded OSPA methodology provides a standard means for testing online services and determining how they treat certain types of content and constituents. The methodology was originally developed by Will Doherty while at GLAAD; you can view the initial methodology on GLAAD's web site. Thanks to GLAAD for providing the initial funding to initiate this project.

Volunteer programmers have developed open source software utilities to assist with various aspects of the research and these utilities are available to the general public in order to encourage further research.

Reports summarizing the findings from the application of this methodology to online service providers will be prepared. Once enough online service providers have been analyzed using a similar methodology, it will become possible to compare the conditions of use for the various communities on a variety online service providers and to make recommendations to the online service providers about improvements to the online experience of their constituencies. By reading special summary reports, consumers may make decisions about which online service providers will best provide the content they seek.

Volunteer / Intern

The OSPA project relies heavily on volunteer and intern participation, so please consider participating in this important project.

Media Coverage

	Report: ISPs Block 17 Percent of Legit E-mail
	Top Internet service providers blocked 17 percent of legitimate permission-based e-mail in the first half of the year, according to a report issued by Return Path, InternetNews.com (August 12, 2003)

	Big Brother Is Watching You - And Documenting
	eBay, ever anxious to up profits, bends over backward to provide data to law enforcement officials, Haaretz (February 20, 2003)

Dear Member: You've Been Deleted OPG Executive Director Will Doherty comments on Yahoo! yanking the Guerilla Queer Bar website, as well as similar activities of other online services providers, Wired News (July 11, 2002)

"Inside AOL" by Michael Stubbs, Genre--No. 84, pp. 60-63 (August 1, 2000)

Recent Coverage

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Organizations and Related Publications

Sex and the Internet OPG Executive Director Will Doherty presented a program entitled "Sex and the Internet" to the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in San Jose, CA, Online Policy Group (April 12, 2003)

The Great Firewall of China OPG Executive Director Will Doherty presented a program entitled "The Great Firewall of China: Filtering, Blocking, and Government Censorship" to the annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in New York City, Online Policy Group (April 3, 2003)

	Expanded OSPA Methodology
	The methodology OPG uses to assess online service providers, Online Policy Group (January 31, 2001)

	Research Software
	Open source software utilities designed to assist with OPG research and available to the general public in order to encourage further research, Online Policy Group (January 1, 2001)

Does AOL Discriminate? Here is information about a project to test America Online (AOL) to see if the company discriminates, whether or not intentionally, against various minority communities, as well as media coverage of incidents related to AOL, such as the $8 million donation made by CEO Case to a religious school that also runs an "ex-gay" ministry, Online Policy Group (October 18, 2000)

Recent Publications

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