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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup this final week of April:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sponsor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Publishers Pipeline - low-cost or free educational software, housewares,
PC hardware, music CDs, etc. Examples this week:
Where in the USA is Carmen SanDiego? (Reg price $39.99, FREE after mail-in rebate)
Rival Ice Cream Maker (Reg price $69.89, $29.89 after new Instant Rebate)
JumpStart First Grade Math (Reg price $29.99, FREE after mail-in rebate)
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Family Tech: Award-winning sites by/for kids

SafeKids.com's Larry Magid was in Washington last week for the Cable & Wireless Childnet Awards ceremony and wrote up the results in his column for the San Jose Mercury News. This past year he had been serving as one of the judges for these awards, which recognize outstanding Internet projects worldwide that benefit and involve children.

This kind of recognition is needed more than ever because of…

"In some ways the projects recognized by these awards are a throwback to the Internet of old, before the hype and commercialism," Larry writes, adding: "The NASDAQ stock index may be down from where it was two years ago but the enthusiasm of people using the Internet as a tool for change is higher than ever." (See "No more free lunch?" below for a continuation of this dot-com vs. "dot-hope" discussion.)

Students, parents, and teachers will definitely enjoy - and benefit from - surfing the winning sites Larry describes in his piece, from an interactive TV project by students in Canada, Japan, and the US to a Web space where children can write about their heroes to a very successful site for teens that was "set up by two British teenagers fed up with being bullied." But you tell us what you think of these Web sites.

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Online kids at home: How much privacy?

Here are answers from the experts - fellow parents - to Gail's question last week about how much parents should monitor their kids' online activities. Thanks for emailing them in! Because we later interviewed parent, author, and Internet security expert Winn Schwartau about his new book, we put the same question to him too. (You can find Gail's complete message, as well as the book review, in last week's issue.)

  1. Winn in Florida

    "The way we handle it is, we talk to our kids about it - here are the problems, here are the issues. Our daughter did end up in an inappropriate chatroom when she was 12 or 13 and we caught her. She covered up the screen, we asked her, 'What's the matter?', and she said, 'Nothing, oh, nothing.' Then she came and jumped in my lap, crying. She said she'd been in this chatroom, pretended to be someone else. 'Someone said nasty things to me, and I said them back,' she told me. She got an early lesson. I asked her, 'How do you feel about that?' and she said, 'I'm never going back there again.' My wife checked her email once when she was 15 and found that a boy had said entirely too much, if you know what I mean, and my wife was going to do something about it, but she found the response. Our daughter had told the guy, 'If you ever do that again, I'm going to report you to my parents, your parents, and the school.' She took care of it.

    "But they know that we reserve the right to check up on things. That's my parental right and responsibility. They need to understand that. We're aware, we talk with them, we're involved, we look for signs…. Some people may choose to monitor everything kids do - that's their parental right. I may not agree, but it's their prerogative. Their kids may need it. The most important thing is, turn them into partners."

  2. Janet in Japan

    "You don't give an age range, but I would say that if they are minors, they're your responsibility, and so you have a right to know with whom they are communicating and the basic message. My kids, ages 8 and 11, know that nothing on the computer is private. If they're chatting, they'd better be reading and saying things they don't mind me knowing about. If it's a letter, just saying, 'I'm writing Heather about...' is fine. I would say it's like when they were toddlers: If it's too quiet, they're getting into trouble! If they are too insistent about the privacy, are they doing something wrong or planning a surprise birthday party? You need constant communication with them so you know by feel when they're up to no good and when they're doing ok. Hard question!"

  3. Veda in Texas

    "When it comes to today's youth, the best protection is inspection. Parents of course should teach kids how to ethically and correctly communicate online because this knowledge will be beneficial in the child's future. When the child enters the school and the workplace, he or she will be expected to write grammatically correct, succinct communications that convey a certain tone. If the child lacks Netiquette, he or she will certainly jeopardize either his or her course grades or employment position. Therefore, parents should frequently monitor their child's online communications, not only for the child's protection but also for the child's future. Parents who insist that their child behave ethically online are providing an immeasurable service to both educators and employers. Clay is easier to mold when it's soft."

  4. Helen in England

    "I am constantly looking in on my child while she is surfing. I become a real bore when I know she is in a chat room, but I think I would rather be a bore and be hated for a while than subject a teenager to dangers out there, so if your child wants privacy just tell them they can have all the privacy they want when they pay the phone bill. That often shuts them up."

  5. Steven in Texas

    "The difference in 'watching' and 'spying' is, 'watching' means parents give advance notice to children and use open communication, and 'spying' means parents snoop without children's knowledge or consent. I'm the father of three children, ages 17, 15, and 12…. When we introduced the Internet to our home sometime in the mid-'90s, information on Internet safety was not readily available and we made up the rules as we went along, sticking pretty much to what is now the common message….

    "Over the years all of our computer usage increased, so we added computers and became complacent. The rules were relaxed. We trust our children and thought they would be fine. At some point we noticed changes and became concerned. Grades were slipping, avoidably. Online friends were being mentioned in conversations. Computer viruses were somewhat common and important data was being lost. Files were being downloaded that caused the computers to stop functioning properly. Auto-dialers were being automatically installed and unusual items were appearing on telephone bills. Items also started arriving in the mail….

    "We started using an Internet filter. This became quite troublesome and ineffective. It slowed our computers down. Important sites for school projects were inevitably inaccessible so one of us would have to enter passwords. For the most part, inappropriate content was still slipping through and the filter was totally ineffective in protecting our children from online communications. The real problem with filters was that we were relying on the software to do the parenting….

    "In our home, we have [monitoring] software installed on our younger children's computers…. We do not spend too much time looking at the majority of the details. We do ask 'who is this' and 'how do you know them' questions and point out instances of divulging too much personal information. Sporadic occurrences of inappropriate content are not discussed unless the children bring it up and want to talk about it…. We know and our children know we know what is being done on the Internet…. In my opinion, spying never works out like parents think. Inevitably, the child finds out, usually because of something the parents say or do. This does not build trust or open communication…. "

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Web News Briefs

  1. Parents sue game companies

    Some of the families of children killed in the Columbine High School shootings have filed a class action suit against the manufacturers and distributors of video games. The plaintiffs, who are seeking $5 billion in punitive damages, say that "the massacre would not have occurred without the marketing of video games, particularly … 'Doom,' which they say influenced the two gunmen," reports CNET. AOL Time Warner, Nintendo of America, and Sony Computer Entertainment are among the 25 companies being sued.

  2. 'Googling' and e-gossiping

    It happens in schools, it happens in the corporate world, and it can be very destructive (see our feature on Net ethics last week). "When online hearsay intrudes on real life" is the New York Times's headline for a story about two grownups' experiences with online rumor-mongering and gossip. "Anyone - including friends and family, future employers and prospective suitors - can type a name into a popular search engine like Google or Yahoo and find online postings or tidbits of information about that person," reports the Times, whether or not those "tidbits" are true. The piece tells of professionals' experiences with this phenomenon, but it's certainly part of the school scene as well (powerfully enabled by Web chat and instant-messaging), and - ideally - is part of any Net ethics discussion.

    If any of your children have had tough experiences with online rumor-spreading and would like to tell us how they dealt with it, do send us an email.

  3. Child porn debate

    Arguments to uphold or strike down the 1999 Child Pornography Prevention Act were heard before the US Supreme Court this week, according to Wired News. The CPPA prohibits creating erotic images of minors. One appeals court has ruled it unconstitutional, but four others have disagreed with that ruling. It's a complicated case because of what technology now makes possible: virtual child pornography, images that criminal defendants can claim are computer-altered so that minors are only represented rather than actually involved. Technology is also making it difficult for such claims to be proved or disproved in court.

  4. International anti-fraud tool

    There is now help on the Web for consumers who have complaints about e-commerce sites based outside North America. They can file complaints in Spanish, French, or German at the FTC's just-launched "econsumer.gov." According to Newsbytes.com, it's the "international extension of the FTC's popular Consumer Sentinel database," which collects consumer complaints and gives law enforcement agencies in the US and Canada fast access to complaints about fraud in telemarketing and direct mail, as well as Internet-based shopping.

  5. Britain's burgeoning Netizens

    There are now 12.8 million Britons online, up 1 million since January! According to a NetValue survey, TheRegister.com reports that "those who have signed up to the Web during the last year make up a quarter of Britain's total Net population" and 37.2% (9 million) of UK households. That compares with 60% of US households.

  6. More soaring Net numbers

    The Internet music-downloading population grew 40% in a half year, according to the Pew Internet & American Life project. The study, which ended this past February, found that 37 million US adults and teens have downloaded music files from the Net. Here's the interesting breakdown by age: 29% of adult Internet users say they have downloaded music, up from 22% in mid-2000; 51% 18-29-year-olds have; 53% of 12-17-year-olds have (7 million) have; and nearly 75% of boys 15-17 have downloaded music files. Compare those figures to Cyberatlas's recent ones on people who shop online: "Nearly half of the US adult population has made a purchase online, taking e-commerce from a dot-com novelty to the mainstream." That's from a Nielsen/NetRatings and Harris Interactive study.

  7. The Net in the Middle East

    Net penetration is somewhat lower in the Arab world ("barely 10% by 2005"). That's certainly not for economic reasons as in many countries but for cultural ones, reports Wired News from the International Summit on Internet and Multimedia in Abu Dhabi. We appreciated the perspective this article offers.

  8. Multinational software development project

    It's an unprecedented international project being done on the Net, for use on the Net. According to Wired News, educators and software developers in Brazil, Venezuela, and Colombia are teaming up to create Net-based math and science courses for secondary-school students. Schools that decide to use these curricula don't have to be connected to the Internet, though. Wired News adds that, "for those schools with no connection to the Net, a version of a browser will be copied onto a proxy server, and the lessons will be downloaded from CD-ROMs." As far as actually having classrooms wired to the Internet goes, though, US colleges (64% of classrooms) are neck-and-neck with high schools (63%), reports the New York Times, though comparisons of the two educational environments are tough.

  9. No more free lunch?

    "What makes you think you deserve free Internet anything," writes ZDNet executive editor David Coursey. Anyway, the free Internet days are over, he says, adding that some of the money that vanished from the NASDAQ went to giving stuff away free to Internet users. We and the Internet are better off because of it, though, he suggests. David also asks himself (and tries to answer) what will be left of the "Internet revolution." His answer is a little depressing, but we think incomplete. The very positive part of the answer is represented in Larry Magid's Family Tech article above about the winners of the Cable & Wireless Childnet Awards. Tell us if you agree! (We also think "What's left of the Internet revolution" would be a great topic for classroom, and dinner-table, debate.)

  10. Minoring in the Internet

    At more and more colleges and universities in the US students can minor in the Internet. According to the Nando Times, among them are Brandeis University, Cornell University, and Centenary College of Louisiana, and "scores of other colleges and universities offer undergraduate classes in Internet-related studies, though most have yet to organize them into degree programs."

  11. Web's top women

    The dot-com shakeout has reconfigured Women on the Web's "Top 25 Women" a bit. According to Wired News, the names on this year's list "aren't just CEOs and Internet celebrities, but behind-the-scenes designers, producers, activists, educators, and technology pioneers." Looks like the list has gotten more interesting!

* * * *

COPPA followup

We'd be remiss in not telling you about another important study of kids' Web sites' privacy practices: that of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The Center reports that "most children's Web sites are not following the spirit of privacy laws," many don't seem to take the law seriously, and some are in clear violation. Key findings are reported in the Center's press release, which can be downloaded in pdf format. The Christian Science Monitor's report looks at why compliance can be tough for many Web publishers in "A year later, kids' privacy rules still."

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam's privacy report card is not looking very good either. According to the USIIA Bulletin, after reviewing few than a third of US government Web sites, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee found that 64 of them "use permanent 'cookies' to track visitors' movements." The Committee found that half of the sites run by the Education Department alone collect personal information and do not post privacy policies, violations of federal law. "The situation was the same at the General Services Administration, the Treasury Department, the Energy Department, and the Department of Transportation," the Bulletin added.

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

Sincerely,

Anne Collier, Editor

Net Family News


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