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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup as we head into June (what happened to May?!):


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One connected family

For this week's issue we interviewed the very Web-literate Emily, 12, and her mom, Jennifer, who is no techno-slouch herself! We do these online-family interviews as often as possible because we think (tell us if you disagree!) it's always interesting and often helpful to see how other families are dealing with the phenomenon of having their kids online. This week we'll look at the family as a whole. Next week's Part 2 of "One connected family" will be about Emily's own online times.

To say the least, Jennifer, Nelson, Emily, and Sarah are one of your more Internet-fluent families. They've been online since Emily was four and Jennifer was in graduate school. Jennifer, a researcher and librarian in educational technology policy, just completed a paper about teaching students wise use of the Net for the Southern Regional Education Board. Nelson, a technical specialist in plastics, built all three of the family's three computers from parts, wired their home network, and helps out relatives and several older neighbors by maintaining their computers.

Emily, a sixth-grader, uses the Internet more at home than at school. For Sarah, a second-grader, it's just the opposite because the elementary school she attends is a math/science/technology theme school that's "very focused on using technology whenever appropriate," Jennifer told us. Sarah's class just finished a Rainforest unit that incorporated the Internet. For that, the children spent some time with the Tropical Rainforest Coalition's Web site.

Despite their parents' technical and online expertise, there are some things about Emily and Sarah's online experience that don't sound particularly unusual. Jennifer describes it this way: "In the past year my girls have moved from 'interested' to major users - instant messaging, email with friends and family, research, entertainment (especially the TV/cartoon-related sites) and creating their own Web pages." [Have any of you experienced that online escalation at your house? If so, do tell us how you're dealing with it - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.]

We asked Jennifer if the family has any Internet-use rules or policies. "Sarah really only does research on the Web - for her schoolwork. She only researches on somebody's lap, basically," Jennifer said. "For Emily, it's: 'I know your password and can read your email anytime. I occasionally spotcheck - read her email over her shoulder - but she's very responsible."

Do they use any filtering software? No, Jennifer told us. She expanded on that in an email; we think their reasoning might be helpful to other parents:

"I am uncomfortable with using filters (either software or filtered ISPs) because 1) it tacitly allows someone else to control the materials I access on the Internet, and because 2) I feel it is more important to teach my daughters how to make decisions and deal with these kinds of issues rather than trying to shelter them from reality.

"My children are never online alone - my husband or I frequently peep over their shoulder. Our Internet-active computer is located in a home office rather than in the kids' bedroom. We feel there is no excuse for parents allowing their children to access the Internet without also being 'nosy' and checking up on them - any more than we would allow our children to sleep over at a school friend's house without first checking out the family."

We asked Jennifer if she had any thoughts on kids' privacy and COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act that went into effect in April - see our report).

"It's interesting you bring it up," she said. "Emily uses Go.com for her email service. When the parent-registration requirement became effective, she and I both got the requisite email. We said, 'Ok, we can do this.' So I registered her, and [a message] popped up that they needed my credit card number. I emailed them back saying, 'I'm not going to give you my credit card number and certainly not for my daughter's account.' They emailed back saying that, actually, children can register without a credit card number. Then she somehow got her account. They must've set her up. A customer-service guy called me in person too." (Here's an InternetNews piece about COPPA that mentions the policies of Go.com and its parent company, Disney.)

Jennifer went on to describe how easy it is for preteens to get around COPPA, aimed at protecting the privacy of children under 13. "You should ask Emily about Net-savvy adolescent users these days," Emily's mom said, "She set herself up on Geocities.com [a huge Web community of free personal home pages], but because the registration form required that kids be 13 she and her friends registered with each other's birthdays [her friends were 13]."

What did that say to you? we asked her. "COPPA's pretty useless so far. The first brush I had with it was annoying. It seemed reasonable, but with the research I did about these things [for her paper on kids and the Internet], it was clear there are other things in the background - other legislative issues, things being left out you don't hear about it, loopholes. I mean, how long did it take the kids to figure out [how to get around it]?"

We interviewed Emily with Jennifer on the phone and, as her mom suggested, we asked her about COPPA. Emily's first thought reflected both a young person's and the public's perceptions about the law (that it protects more than kids' privacy): "I for one would never go anywhere like that, because I think it's gross and stupid."

Then, it was clear from Emily's description of the Geocities.com experience, that it was just kids playing around - not any calculated effort to get around COPPA's age restrictions. "My two best friends in the whole world [Jessica and Rachel, 13-year-old twins], since I was in first grade and they were in second - wanted to have one Web site that we both used. We used both of our [accounts'] names and their birthday. We just made up a person together so we can all log on at the same time."

Stay Tuned: We'll have more on that Web site and other developments in the online life of Emily next week. Meanwhile, if you'd like to tell us about your family's or classroom's acceptable-use and online-safety policies, we'd love to hear about them.

* *

Links in this report:

And just this week on privacy:

  1. Avoiding identity theft

    Identity theft is when a criminal takes your personal information - name, address, social security number, mother's maiden name, etc. - and uses it to establish credit and charge items to you. It's one of the biggest concerns about shopping online, and ZDNET offers a how-to piece on how to prevent it from happening.

  2. Big concerns: New study

    A consumer study released this week by the Software & Information Industry Association showed that more than two-thirds of computer users are concerned about Internet privacy issues and shun sites that don't guarantee security for personal data. And, according to Newsbytes, concerns are greater among women: "76% of women and 63% of men were particularly concerned about collection of personal information."

  3. How to fight back

    A new law that allows insurers, brokerage houses, banks, and others share our personal data has scary implications. CNN.com explains what the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act means and how to opt out.

  4. Canada deletes citizen database

    The "Longitudinal Labor Force File" that contained information on every Canadian citizen will be dismantled. Wired News reports that it "came under intense scrutiny in the parliament and media beginning two weeks ago, and the Canadian government agreed to scrap the database after its own privacy commission released a report detailing its objections to the databases's "breadth and lack of privacy protection."

* * * *

Two new search engines: WebBrain, InfraSearch

There are directories like Yahoo! and there are search engines like Google.com. Now Web users can use both - employing both sophisticated technology and human reasoning (which directories use) - to find that elusive little Web site. They can do so by going to WebBrain.com. According to Wired News, the search engine is actually a demo created by the makers of some software called TheBrain that can search any database, not just a Web directory (e.g., Word or Office documents on a corporate network). The database WebBrain.com uses is the Yahoo!-like one created by Netscape called the Open Directory Project (now owned by America Online). It's a database of sites screened by humans - "more than 24,000 contributors who have entered more than 1.7 million Web sites," Wired News reports. We might add that sexually explicit sites are not excluded from the ODP database.

InfraSearch is not for everybody, but it's as groundbreaking to search technology as Napster is to the music industry. According to CNET, it could leave "conventional" search engines like AltaVista.com and Lycos.com in the dust - partly because it isn't dependent on "spider" technology that crawls through Web sites and has a hard time keeping up with the Web's constant change and exponential growth. "Like the controversial Napster software," CNET says, this search technology "allows hundreds or even thousands of people at a time to hook their computers together to share music libraries. Unlike Napster, however, it allows people to search for any kind of files; a random sampling of the search terms being used at any given time ranges from MP3s to blockbuster movies to pornography."

That last part is something parents and educators should know about InfraSearch, but Web-literate folk also know that sexually explicit material can easily be turned up in any non-filtered search engine and directory. An example of a child-safe directory is Yahooligans.com. Two search engines that have child-safety mechanisms are Lycos.com (click on "Parental Controls" on the right just under the search box on the home page) and Go.com (click on "GOguardian" just under the search box).

If you try it, do tell us what you think of these search technologies, or tell us which search engine you favor.

* * * *

Web News Briefs

  1. Email in high school

    The likes of Hotmail.com, Email.com, and YahooMail.com are increasingly unpopular at school. A growing number of high schools are "clamping down" on the use of these free email services because for reasons of both online safety and limited network resources, the New York Times reports. On the online-safety front, "Boston's public schools recently barred students from using free e-mail services … after one student sent another student death threats and other disturbing messages. The sender accessed a free e-mail service from a school computer, and the outside e-mail address made it difficult for school officials to track down the culprit," according to the Times.

    FYI, an alternative to free email services is the secure email accounts for students that Dotsafe.com is providing schools. The company reports that the service is popular among both students and the 78 school districts it's serving so far.

    The kind of email school administrators will have a very hard time managing in the very near future will come through wireless, handheld communications devices like cell phones and voice-recording pens. According to the New York Times, all the communicating happens "out of sight and earshot of teachers and principals." It's like passing messages, 21st-century style. One such "toy," due out in September, is Lightning Mail from Hasbro, with technology so sophisticated it'll probably soon appear in products for grownups.

  2. DSL hell?

    If you or anyone you know is considering switching from dialup Internet access to a fast connection called DSL (digital subscriber line), think hard. ZDNet offers the first-hand experience of one of its editors. The article's headed, "Don't Get Trapped in DSL Hell." And just as useful as the piece itself: readers' own responses in "Talkback" at the bottom of the page - mostly negative, some positive. One reader makes a sensible point: More often it's the unhappy customers who post in discussions like these. If you have a DSL story of your own, do tell!

    Meanwhile, UK tech-news site The Register reports on Time-Warner's "scam" - telling employees to sign up for DSL service from competitor Southwestern Bell to see where the competition was able to offer the service.

  3. 'Resume virus'

    It was reaching email boxes over Memorial Day Weekend and was supposed to do real - but not quite Love Bug-style - damage after people returned to their PCs at work, reported the Seattle Times. But, according to the Associated Press (via CNET), there were few reports of damage to people's computers.

  4. Online porn: Amex's nix

    It was a business decision not a moral one: American Express has decided it will no longer cover credit card transactions from Web sites selling pornography. According to Wired News, online porn charges get a disproportionately high number of disputes (compared to other business categories), and Amex decided it no longer wanted to pay the cost of administering those disputes. Wired News cited Internet analysts' figures in estimating that online porn sites bring in more than $1 billion a year.

  5. Senior surfers

    Now, there's a great idea: tech support by seniors, for seniors. SeniorSurfers.net trains people 55 and older to use computers and the Internet. Like another Web-based seniors service we reported on in April, the company is banking on recent research that says users 45 and up are going online in record numbers, and they have deeper pockets than nearly every other demographic group. In its report on SeniorSurfers.net, Wired News says people "between the ages of 55 and 64 have $600 billion to spend," but they are not yet comfortable doing the spending online. Enter this new category of Web sites, which is certainly getting cheers from e-commerce sites everywhere! If you have a favorite site or Web service you'd like to tell fellow subscribers about, do email the address and your reasons for liking it.

  6. Aussies take on online gambling

    The Australian government is confronting Web-based gambling head on. Wired News reports that, knowing one online casino's experience - AU$90 million in online bets from the US, Europe, and Asia and betting volume growing by 38% a month - others want to follow suit. The federal government advised the states to observe a one-year moratorium on licensing, and the states are opposing it. Watch for a showdown.

  7. Tech camp for girls

    Well, actually they're coed camps, but they're doing all they can to attract girls. According to Wired News, what they're teaching is programming languages, Web design, animation, video editing, business-plan writing, and finance - as well as yoga, kickboxing, and other more physical endeavors. They're in various parts of the United States. One program, called ACE (for American Computer Experience) encourages girls who participate in the Girl Scouts, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, and the Boys & Girls Clubs to apply.

  8. Microsoft-free office?

    Apple lovers and MS critics have been talking about it wistfully for years - the possibility of conducting business without using Windows and/or Microsoft's Office, browser, email, and other software. Well, while the world (maybe not so breathlessly?) awaits the Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision on Microsoft, ZDNet looks at the practicalities of deleting all traces of MS software from one's computer. The verdict: "The 'Microsoft-free' office remains more myth than reality - even among the company's competitors, the group most eager to break free of the software giant's hold. ZDNet explains why. And for antitrust-trial followers, here's a profile of Judge Jackson in the Boston Globe and CNET on Microsoft's pre-decision last word.

  9. 'Almost alive' dolls

    Researchers are just beginning to study the impact on children of robotic pets and dolls that are "almost alive," according to the New York Times. One well-known researcher, psychoanalyst and MIT professor Sherry Turkle, is in the middle of a multiyear study of virtual pets such as Furbies - how they affect the way children 5-10 think about and identify themselves. The article's worth reading, particularly by parents who will find "My Real Baby" on their child's holiday wish list next December. Hasbro's $100 chip- and electronic sensor-loaded "animatronic" doll, expected to be on store shelves in November, will quite spontaneously giggle when it's tickled, sleep when it's rocked, and so on.

* * * *

Silicon Valley: From a guy who grew up there

These days it's hard to think of Silicon Valley - that hotbed of high-tech entrepreneurial churn at the foot of San Francisco Bay - as a place where a kid grew up. But Jeff Goodell did grow up there. He's author of "Sunnyvale: The Rise and Fall of a Silicon Valley Family," to be published in July, and the book was excerpted in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

For anyone even mildly curious about "the valley [that] not only designed and built much of the machinery that powers the new economy but … also freed capitalism from its old restraints of class and corporatism, transforming untold numbers of college dropouts into multimillionaires and sparking a technological revolution that is reshaping our lives in unimaginably vast, complex and subtle ways," the excerpt is pretty fascinating. Makes us want to read the book.

* * * *

Subscribers write: Filtered ISP pick, kind words

  1. From Mike in California:

    Thank you for your newsletter! I have learned a lot over the last few months of getting this! I used FamilyConnect for a while but was unhappy with the way the filtering could be shut off as in our area their phone lines were leased. I have switched to Integrity Online recently here in California and am extremely happy with the service. The home service is much faster than my old Earthlink and AOL accounts, the filtering is great and I have never had any overblocked sites. I also manage an office with 15 computers and we use their service on the DSL as well. I know that my employees are not viewing in appropriate sites and that they really do care about my people.

  2. From Jim in Connecticut:

    I am a middle-level teacher on a leave of absence. I am currently an educational technology consultant and the Webmaster of middleschool.com. I am very impressed with your work on behalf of kids. As a teacher of 12-14-year-olds and the father of a 3- and a 7-year-old, I want to thank you for your work. I will do my best to pass the word on about your site. Please let me know if there is any opportunity to be of any assistance to your great site.

* * * *

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That does it for this week. Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Net Family News
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