Net Nanny was designed, created and founded by
Gordon Ross in 1994 in
Vancouver and moved to
Bellevue, Washington in 2000. He became inspired to create an internet protection service for children, families and organizations, after viewing a
sting operation on a
pedophile soliciting a child online. In 1997, Net Nanny had sold 200,000 copies of its filter. In 1998, the company expanded its offerings beyond family protection when it launched BioPassword, a bio metric security access system based on technology it acquired from
Stanford University. On November 14, 2002, Net Nanny filed for bankruptcy and was sold to BioNet Systems, LLC, a maker of bio metric security software in
Issaquah, Washington. LookSmart Ltd, a commercial web search company based in
San Francisco acquired Net Nanny for $5.3 million in stock and cash in April 2004. In January 2007, Net Nanny was purchased by ContentWatch Inc and moved to
Salt Lake City. The product line was expanded to include security and business-oriented solutions. Mobile browsers for iOS and Android were released in June 2012 at the
Consumer Electronics Show. These also allowed parents to monitor and manage the applications on the phone. In 2013, Net Nanny Social was launched to allow parents to monitor their children's
social media activity and to protect against
cyber bullying,
cyber stalking, grooming by sexual predators, and the spread of sensitive images and videos. Features were added to the desktop applications to help adults who wanted their internet content filtered. In May 2014, the
Brooklyn Public Library chose Net Nanny to filter content and applications on its Android tablets to ensure compliance with the
Children's Internet Protection Act. Zift, a digital parenting company, acquired Net Nanny from ContentWatch in 2016 and moved most operations to
Philadelphia. In May 2019, Zift's applications were rebranded and launched as Net Nanny 10 for all supported platforms. In 2021, Net Nanny merged with
SafeToNet, a British cyber-safety company headquartered in London. ==Reception==