If you represent an educational institution you may find the Benefits for Educational Institutions page more appropriate.

It is the responsibility of every company to provide a safe and non-discriminating work environment for their employees.  Legal issues can arrise when an employee views objectionable web content on their computer that is inadvertently viewed by another coworker who is offended by that content.  Emerald Web Shield can severely reduce the risk of this form of liability by preventing inappropriate text and images from being downloaded to a user's computer at all.

In the workplace many non-objectionable websites can still be considered inappropriate because they are not necessary to perform a job function.  Emerald Web Shield can be customized to block websites that aren't considered harmful but that a manager feels detracts from their employees' ability to focus on work.

Many websites don't just contain objectionable content but also introduce real problems to the company network by installing viruses, trojans, adware, or spyware to a user's computer.  These problems must then be handled by IT staff and can cost a company a significant amount of time and money.  Emerald Web Shield can prevent many of these problems by totally preventing such malicious sites from being downloaded by any user.

While a firewall provides security it does not discriminate about any traffic it allows to pass through an open port.  A single port (usually port 80) is opened on a firewall to allow users to browse the web.  This allows all traffic to pass through the port regardless of its content, which includes all content downloaded from any website.  Emerald Web Shield can complement a secure firewall by providing filtration for all web content.