History

In the year 2000, Ron DeHaas was asking himself these questions:: 

• “How can I teach my children to use the internet with integrity?”
• “How do I guard my own heart and remain pure online?”
• “How do I serve as an example to my family and church?” 

Like many Christians today, he deeply felt the dangers and temptations of technology. Simply trying to hide from the changing digital landscape didn’t seem like a good option. The filters and parental controls available at the time seemed like a band-aid solution at best.  

Ron wanted a tool that would help him use technology in a way that honored God, and encourage deeper relationships with the people he cared about. So he invented Internet Accountability. 

The Beginning of Covenant Eyes

The concept of Internet Accountability was simple: it tracked the URLs of all the websites visited on the computer and put them in a report which was sent to a chosen accountability partner, an ally, as we came to call them.  

Ron chose the name Covenant Eyes based on Job 31:1: “I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully on a woman.”  

The idea was that this service would help people who, like Job, wanted to make a covenant with their eyes and live with integrity in this new online world.  

Ron enlisted the help of a young tech enthusiast named Collin Rose. They set up shop in the back of an insurance office in Corunna Michigan. That summer, they released Covenant Eyes 1.0 for Windows.  

Over the next months and years, Ron poured everything he had into the formation of the company. 

“I didn’t have money to go to McDonalds to buy a cup of coffee.”

Ron DeHaas
Covenant Eyes CEO

Launching an innovative software company was certainly a financial risk for Ron. But there was a bigger challenge: confronting the shame and secrecy that surrounded the issue of pornography. Few Christians wanted to talk about pornography, especially in the early 2000’s.  

Ron and his small team sensed what the data would soon reveal: a staggering number of Christians were secretly struggling. How could Covenant Eyes help people if no one wanted to talk about it?  

They began networking with churches and other organizations to raise awareness about the issue of pornography, confront the shame around it, and spread the word about the freeing power of accountability.   

Early Growth

By 2004, Covenant Eyes was serving 10,000 members. The following year membership doubled across 67 different countries. Covenant Eyes grew to a 14-person team, and by the year of 2006, the number of employees also doubled.  

Covenant Eyes radically expanded its technical capabilities, adding Mac support and a content filter to supplement accountability reporting. Support for iPhone® and other popular mobile devices would follow in the coming years.  

But even more important than numerical growth were the testimonies—stories of lives changed and relationships restored through the power of accountability.  

“The internet is no longer a trap for me, and I have had nearly 100% victory over pornography since I started an accountability relationship through Covenant Eyes. I cannot thank you enough for what your service has done in my spiritual life!”

Anonymous 2008 Member Testimony

Covenant Eyes representatives were now regularly speaking with thousands of people across the world—parents, individuals, pastors, and ministry leaders.  

The message of freedom from pornography and the practical help of Internet Accountability were resonating.

Resources for Recovery

Covenant Eyes leadership recognized the need for more public conversation about pornography in the Christian community. More Christians were admitting they had a problem, but there were few places to turn for help.  

To help address this problem, Covenant Eyes launched a blog in 2008. The blog allowed Covenant Eyes to speak candidly about pornography from a Christian perspective. It featured helpful advice from former porn addicts, former porn stars, wives of porn addicts, and concerned parents.  

Soon after, Covenant Eyes released its first Porn Stats compilation in 2009. Since then, Covenant Eyes Porn Stats has been featured in The Washington Times, The Detroit News, Life Site News, and other news outlets. It is used by tens of thousands of people each year for research.    

While these efforts helped open the conversation, they also revealed the desperate need for quality, biblically-based resources to answer these pressing questions: 

• I’ve tried quitting porn and I can’t. What can I do?  
• I just discovered my spouse’s pornography problem, I feel so betrayed.   
• How do I teach my children to navigate online temptations? 
• What is the best way to keep someone accountable?  

To address this need, Covenant Eyes began publishing ebooks and other educational resources. In the coming years, education would increasingly be a focus of Covenant Eyes, eventually branching out into email challenges, app-based content, and video teaching courses.  

“I found freedom in Christ. God taught me how to reshape the way I lived, thought, and felt. Resources like the Covenant Eyes e-books were a vital tool.” 

Jordan 2021 Member Testimony

In 2016, Covenant Eyes collaborated with leading Christian organizations to raise awareness on the issue of pornography. They hosted the Set Free Global Summit, which was attended by more than 850 Christian leaders from around the world.  

Covenant Eyes continues to push forward with resources, particularly for churches and Christian leaders. In 2023, Covenant Eyes Director of Recovery Education, Sam Black, published his book The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong About Pornography and How to Fix It.

New Innovations

When Covenant Eyes began in 2000, most people were using dial-up and AOL was the most popular website in the world. But soon, high-speed internet, smartphones, and social media took over, and Covenant Eyes had to innovate constantly to keep up.  

Nonetheless, the old way of tracking URLs eventually started to become obsolete.

Covenant Eyes faced an existential crisis: They had invented Internet Accountability and it had helped over a million people on their journey away from porn, but something drastic had to change.  

Covenant Eyes brought in experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning and began research and development for a brand-new kind of reporting technology: Covenant Eyes would now detect the images on the screen. In 2019, Covenant Eyes launched Screen Accountability, once again reinventing digital accountability.  

Then, in 2022, Covenant Eyes went mobile-first with the Covenant Eyes Victory App. For the first time, Covenant Eyes shifted to an interactive in-app experience for members. Even more revolutionary, Victory introduced free accounts, allowing many more people to take advantage of free resources and tools for overcoming pornography.  

“Covenant Eyes has provided light at the end of the tunnel. There is a road to recovery and healing, and I am on that road right now.”

Nathanael 2023 Member Testimony

Employee-Ownership and the Future of Covenant Eyes

After 20 years of running Covenant Eyes, Ron DeHaas was approaching retirement age.

Numerous investors had made offers to purchase Covenant Eyes, but Ron didn’t want to sell it until he could safeguard the mission. What was the best way to ensure that Covenant Eyes kept influencing culture for the next 20 years and more?  

Covenant Eyes leadership decided the company should belong to the people who cared most about its mission: its employees. In December of 2020, Covenant Eyes became 100% employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Program.