Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #433

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French Firm Offered Spyware To “Find Out If Your Son Is Gay”
A French compa- ny offering "invisi- ble PC spy soft- ware" has been criticised after it said its product could be used "to find out if your son is gay".
Listing a series of "clues", the com- pany, Fireworld, suggested that "hacking his Facebook account" and seeing if he had visited gay web- sites could con- firm a parent's suspicions.
The company has since taken down the article.
The post was highlighted by a French youth LGBT rights group.
L'Amicale des jeunes du Refuge's thread a bout Fireworld's article (in French) was retweeted by French Secretary of State for Equality Marlène Schiappa,
who wrotethat it showed that "homophobia and sexism have their roots in the same
gender stereo- types. We will fight them togeth- er".
In its online arti- cle, since removed, the firm said that "family is fundamental. That's why the sexual orientation of your children, directly responsi- ble for the contin- uation of your family, is very important to you".
The article went on to list the clues that might cause a parent to suspect that their
son might be gay. The article makes no mention of female homosex- uality.
They include "taking good care of himself", being more interested in reading and theatre than in football, being shy as a young boy, having cer- tain piercings and liking female singers and divas.
It then suggested a variety of ways to be sure, including "moni-
toring his Facebook use", seeing "if he has visited gay forums" and "spy- ing on his private messages".
In a response to L'Amicale des jeunes du Refuge, Fireworld wrote that "the article had the sole aim of improving search engine optimisa- tion and was never intended to be read by humans".
"We regret not having reflected
on the conse- quences of this type of content..." the firm emailed. "We sincerely apologise to all those who may have felt offended by this content," it added.
However, the English language version of Fireworld's
site suggests a range of scenar- ios in which a potential cus- tomer might want to monitor some- one else's com- puter, including "control your
teenage off- spring's PC", checking "what your employees are doing" and "detecting infideli- ty in your mar- riage or relation- ship".
It is not legal in France to install spyware on someone else's computer in order to monitor it, with- out their knowl- edge.
Fireworld points out to customers that they must comply with the law when using their products. However, it says, "installing [its product] to make sure that your children are not endangering themselves on the Internet or on social networks, come[s] closer to being legal".
French newspa- per Liberation ports that spy- ware vendors are usually more sub- tle in their claims for their products, as French
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