Gaggle.Net - CIPA Compliance for Google Apps

CIPA Compliance for Google Apps

Google Apps for education provides an excellent set of communication tools for students and educators. However, the email account feature of Google Apps does not offer a method to meet the requirements of the Children's Internet Protection Act.

As a solution, Gaggle accounts can be integrated with Google Apps. The same great monitoring and filtering capabilities found in Gaggle can be applied to your Gmail accounts.

Click here to learn more about Gaggle's CIPA Compliance.

What are the benefits of Gaggle filtering for Google accounts

Gaggle's control and filtering system gives you peace of mind that you are protecting your students from sending and receiving inappropriate email. You can even place restrictions on student accounts controlling with whom they communicate such as just within their own classroom or school.

All student mail that is flagged by the filters is redirected to your Google Apps account so that you can decide if it is allowed to go through or is blocked.

In addition, Gaggle's web-based interface provides educators with the ability to retroactively review all email stored in a student's account. Received mail, sent mail and even deleted mail can be reviewed by the educator.

Filtering Features Include:


Offensive Text	Each school can customize a set of blocked words and phrases. Any email sent with questionable text will be re-routed to an educators account to review before it is delivered.

Pornographic Images	Gaggle's Anti-Pornography Scanner (APS) automatically detects and blocks pornographic images which are embedded in the emails or sent as attachments. The scanner is exceptionally accurate and in most cases it can detect the difference between pictures of students in bathing suits and pornographic images.

Pornographic Web Sites	Gaggle's APS has been expanded beyond images to monitoring URLs. All web links inside of emails are checked in real time to insure that the web sites do not contain pornographic content.

Attachment Content Filtering	Common document types are now decoded and scanned for offensive text, images and URLS before they are delivered. Supported document types include PDF, MS Word, MS Excel, Powerpoint, RTF, TXT and HTML

Sending Restrictions	Sending & receiving restrictions can be setup by class, school or district. Even though Google Apps does group your students by class or school, the Gaggle application can still be aware of these designations. You can then prevent users from different classes or schools from directly communicating with each other. This is especially useful when both your high school and elementary student accounts share the same Google Apps domain name.

Blocked Addresses and Domains	Users set to the full student level can email anywhere in the world subject to a set of Blocked Addresses and domains that you control. For example, you can block all email with .com addresses, but allow aol.com. You can then further decide to block a specific aol.com address.

Attachment Type Filtering	Your accounts can be configured to block email with specific types of attachments such as EXE, SCR, MP3, ZIP files etc. These attachments can be stripped out of the email or rerouted to an administrator for review.

Max Messages per Day	The Max Messages per Day feature allows you to specify how many emails per day a student can send.

Max Recipients per Email	The Max Recipients feature allows you to restrict a student to sending to only a set number of individuals with each email. It helps prevent users from spamming your entire group with irrelevant email.

Email Display Name to Outsiders	This feature governs what full name information is sent with your user's email messages. For example, your students can be set to include no name, a first name, a first name plus last initial etc. This feature helps protect the identity and the privacy of your student users.

Outbound Mail User Identification	A notice can be appended t the bottom of every outbound email indicating if it was sent by a student, staff member or educator along with the name of your school or district.

How Does it work?

Gaggle functions as a pass-through email server for your Google accounts. All inbound and outbound mail passes through Gaggle before reaching its' final destination. The mail is sorted, filtered and stored on the Gaggle system just like one of our regular subscription email accounts.

Integrating Gaggle with Google Apps requires two changes on the part of the Google Apps administrator. The changes are seamless and will not interrupt the email service of your Google Apps users.

1. Change your MX record to point to mail.gaggle.net
2. Under your Google Apps Service Settings set the Email Gateway to "smtp.gaggle.net"

It will take approximately 2-12 hours for these changes to fully propagate through Google and the internet. As the changes take place the mail for your users will begin to funnel through the Gaggle servers.

Synchronizing of the accounts from Google to Gaggle can also be automated. As Gaggle detects new accounts on Google the accounts can be automatically created.

Can Gaggle provide Email Archiving for Google Apps?

Yes, Gaggle provides an excellent solution for archiving your user's Google Apps email and can even facilitate re-delivery of the mail. For more information check please review our Google Apps Archiving page.

How do I Purchase Gaggle's CIPA Compliance for Google Apps?

The cost for Gaggle's integrated email filtering for Google is the same as Gaggle's standard subscription accounts plus a setup of $500 per domain. Depending upon the number of accounts needed it could be as little as $3 per account per year. In addition, there may be federal funding available to pay for the Gaggle email account portion via E-rate

If you are ready to see a demo of Gaggle's Integrated Filtering System Google Apps please contact sales@gaggle.net or call 800-288-7750.