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Scientology censors WWW for members

The Church of Scientology has always been unhappy with the amount of critical information that is available on the Internet. To flood search engines with pro-Scientology information, the Scientology spam pages (on-line.scientology.org) were devised: thousands of rather identical pages telling the world how great it is to be a Scientologist and where to find more information.

Bringing so many Scientologists on-line raised another danger, however; these people could become aware of the amount of critical material about Scientology that was already available on the web. To avoid this, on-line Scientologists had to sign the following contract:

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL


__________________________________
(Name)

__________________________________
(Address)

__________________________________


__________________________________
("Parishioner")


Dear Parishioner, 

Church of Scientology International ("CSI") has been authorized to grant you,
as a Scientologist in good standing, the non-exclusive, royaltee-free right to
reproduce and display on your personal Web site the collective membership mark
"SCIENTOLOGIST"and the Scientology symbol, both as shown on the attached 
Exhibit A ("The Marks"), upon certain terms and conditions. If you agree to
abide by these terms and conditions, this letter will be your authorization, as
long as you remain a Scientologist in good standing and comply with all
standards, specifications and guidelines on such use of the Marks.

CSI also has the authority to include in this grant the right to reproduce and
display on your Web site certain copyrighted photographs of L. Ron Hubbard and
certain quotations from the copyrighted works listed on the attached Exhibit B
("The Works").

If you wish to use this authorization regarding the Marks and the Works,
you must:

(1) submit a copy of your proposed use of the Marks or any quotations from
the Works of L. Ron Hubbard to CSI and receive prior written approval on any
of these from CSI before putting up or adding to your Web site, and also for
any subsequent changes that you wish to make in your Web site;

(2) not use the Marks or copyrighted materials in any way or in conjunction
with any activities or materials that may be deemed improper or a discredit to
the Scientology religion;

(3) not use the Marks or the Works in any way or in conjunction with any
activities or materials that would violate the law;

(4) refrain from charging fees or other exchange connected to the Marks or
the Works;

(5) comply immediately and completely with any and all changes that CSI may 
require in the Web site, including termination of use of the Marks and the
Works if required by CSI;

(6) agree to use the specific Internet Filter Program that CSI has provided to
you which allows you freedom to view other sites on Dianetics, Scientology or
its principals without threat of accessing sites deemed to be using the Marks
or Works in an unauthorized fashion or deemed to be improper or discreditable
to the Scientology religion; and

(7) upon termination of this authorization for any reason, immediately cease
all use of the Marks and the Works on your Web site (this authorization may be
terminated at any time at the sole discretion of CSI).

CSI reserves the right to revoke the rights set forth in this letter or require
modification or termination of the use of the Marks or the Works on any Web
site if, in CSI's judgement, you have failed to strictly comply with the above
conditions and/or have in any way endangered or otherwise harmed the Marks or
the Works.

Please sign, date and return this letter to indicate your acceptance of these
conditions.

Sincerely, 

Church of Scientology
International

By:


______________________________
Lynn Farny
Secretary


Agreed and Accepted:

___________________________

Date:_______________________


Exhibit A

SCIENTOLOGIST(tm)

<Big Scientology Symbol Here>(r)


Exhibit B

UNDERSTANDING: The Universal Solvent

KNOWINGNESS

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

PHOTOGRAPHS OF L. RON HUBBARD:

PHOTOGRAPH OF L. RON HUBBARD, HAND ON CHIN
(cover photograph for 
"UNDERSTANDING: The Universal Solvent")

PHOTOGRAPH OF L. RON HUBBARD, LEANING ON FENCE
(cover photograph for
"RON THE PHILOSOPHER: Rediscovery of the Human Soul")

PHOTOGRAPH OF L. RON HUBBARD, WEARING ASCOT
    LOOKING AT CAMERA
(cover photograph for
"RON THE HUMANITARIAN: The Road to Self-Respect")

The "specific Internet Filter Program that CSI has provided" was, of course, also obtained by persons critical of Scientology. It blocks access to certain web sites or deletes email coming from certain persons. For more information on how the software works, see here.

At the end of 2000, Scientology updated its software. An email was sent to Field Staff Members (FSMs), part of which reads:

Dear FSM On-Line,

As you know, part of the Scientologist On-Line program (as
in the legal agreement which you signed) includes Internet Filtering
software that we have developed which blocks entheta email messages, if
any were to be sent to you by the few 2.5% lingering on the Internet.

We will periodically be providing updated versions of this
filter program to ensure that your comm lines are protected. Thus, if
you have already installed the filter software, you should do so again
in order to utilize the most recent version. (Restart your computer
after doing so for the update to take effect.) Note that if you already
installed the "CleanMail" program you do not need to reinstall it.

If you have not yet installed the filter program, you should
do so now.

This software is simple to install and is compatible with
Windows 95 as well as Windows NT 4.0. (With Service Pack 3) Note that
the software is not yet compatible with Windows 98. A Windows 98
compatible version is being worked on and you will be notified as soon
as it is available.

The big advantage of using this filter program is that it
makes it possible for you to shred any entheta unsolicited messages -
if they ever happen to be sent to you - without even having to look at
them.

So follow the installation instructions at the end of this
email message in order to install the filter software and then email me
back letting me know that you have done so.

The new software consists of two programs, a setup program which also contains the new wordlists, and a program designated for cleaning out POP email accounts. Both programs can be downloaded from on-line.scientology.org:

Installation is straightforward; the working scheme of the program seems to be similar to the old 1998 version of ScienoSitter. However, the encryption scheme for the wordlists has changed; therefore, the new wordlists are currently unfortunately unavailable.

If you are only interested in the wordlists, setup.exe is a self-extracting zip file. You can extract the encrypted wordlists with unzip.


Contributors to this page were Anti-Cult, Charlotte Kates, Claudia Kasch, Cornelius Krasel, Iain Brown, Johan Wevers, Karl Maij, Ron Newman, Scott McClare, Sean McLaughlin, Taniwha, Thaddeus Beier, Zane Thomas and Zinjifar.