Commonwealth Web Content Filtering Services

The Commonwealth's Web Content Filtering services are available to Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Branch and certain non-Executive Branch agencies and their authorized business partners.

Requesting Commonwealth Web Content Filtering Services

Commonwealth employees and their business partners are prohibited from submitting web content filtering service requests.  Requests for web content filtering services submitted by anyone other than an agency/Secretariat Designated Security Officer (DSO) will be rejected.

If you do not know who your agency/Secretariat DSOs are, please reach out to your agency help desk.

DSOs are able to request Web Content Filtering services for their agency through the ServiceNow portal using the Content Filtering Services ServiceNow Catalog item.

Request Content Filtering Services  Learn more about Designated Security Officers (DSOs) 

Web Content Filtering by Category

Web content filtering is the practice of blocking access to web content that may be deemed offensive, inappropriate, or even dangerous.  Web content filtering is a technology which stops users from viewing certain URLs or websites by preventing their browsers from loading pages from these sites. 

In general, Web filters work in two distinct ways. They can block content as determined by quality of the site, by consulting known lists which document and categorize popular pages across all genres of content. Or they can evaluate the content of the page live and block it accordingly. Many Web filter tools work off a constantly updated URL database that shows which websites and domains are associated with hosting malware, phishing, viruses or other tools for harmful activities.

You may request for filtering to allow access and\or deny access to a category or sub-category.  If you select a sub-category and there is only one selection, the sub-category is limited to the main category.  If you would like to manage filtering by Category or Sub-Category, please select the select the "Zscaler Content Filtering" service type, and "Category" filter type, when making your request.

Allow/Deny Site URLs

Allow – (Normally block, but allow) a list of web site addresses included in a content filtering category normally blocked that the agency/Secretariat wants to allow.  For example: blocking all gambling sites, but allowing the Massachusetts State Lottery web site (which is considered a gambling site).

Deny – (Normally allow, but block) a list of web site addresses included in a content filtering category normally allowed that the agency/Secretariat wants to block.  For example: allowing online shopping sites for agency/Secretariat procurement purposes, but blocking the Amazon web site.

This request is to allow and\or deny access of specific site urls.  If you would like to allow or deny specific sites, please select the "Zscaler Content Filtering" service type, and "URL" filter type, when making your request.

Device Grouping

Device Grouping logically groups types of devices.  For example, a SmartTV, Multifunction printer and a Pitney Bowes postage machine are all Internet of things devices (IoT).   The device types may be requested as follows: 

• Internet of Things
• Servers
• Desktop(s)
• Other

A DSO may choose one or many devices to add\modify or delete the filter policy for.  The request allows for adding, modifying and/or deleting a single ip, multiple ip's or a range of ip addresses.  If you would like to request device grouping, please select the "Zscaler Device Grouping" service type when making your request.

Commonwealth Web Content Filtering service page

For more information on Commonwealth Web Content Filtering services, please visit our Commonwealth Web Content Filtering service page on mass.gov.