Safety for Children Online

Is it Safe for Kids On-line?

It’s up to their parents to take the right precautions. If you allow them carte blanch to do as they wish, they face on-line predators and the temptation of pornography among other things.

On the other hand, if you do too much and smother them you could drive them to do things behind your back. The internet should be a family activity and with good communication it can be exactly that.

So How Do You Keep an Eye on What the Kids Are Doing Without Betraying Their Trust?

It’s a good idea to set house rules about what information your children can give out and where they can go on-line. On-line communities like Myspace, Friendster and Facebook are extremely popular with young people (and some older kids, too), but they have to understand how easy a predator can track them using simple information obtained from the web.

Talk to your kids about they’re doing on the internet and let them know they can tell you if they come across something that isn’t what they expect. Get yourself up to date with some of the serious on-line threats like identity fraud, internet bullying, stalkers, phishing and spam. It’ll impress if the person setting the rules knows what they’re talking about.

Don’t put details like full names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and schools into social sites unless you’re going to restrict who can view the profile.

Try Some of the New Breed of Security Software Available

You might even consider using filters or surveillance software. Kaspersky has just released a new security suite that features a unique parental control. It’s worth downloading the free trial version to evaluate yourself. Just Google or Yahoo “Kaspersky free trial” and see what comes up.

In addition to parental control it has all the usual stuff like a firewall and antivirus. Kaspersky have obviously put a lot of work into simplifying the operation of their security software after a common complaint about previous efforts was continually that the product was difficult for novices to use.

Time.com Article : Facebook Sets Predator Safeguards

Facebook will add more than 40 new safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, attorneys general from several states said Thursday.

The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and building a task force seeking ways to better verify users' ages and identities.

Read the full Time.com article