Net Family News: Online-Safe Resources for Kids and Families

Online-Safe Resources for Home & School

Please note: The reports in this section are not product reviews or tests; they're meant to spotlight options for you to consider, as well as milestones in children's online-safety technology development. Comments from readers on their own experiences with these products and services are most welcome - and, with your permission, we publish them. Do email us your own product reviews anytime!

From our overview of new kinds of online-safety options - and products that represent them - on display at the June '99 Digital Kids conference in San Francisco...
Kids sites with clubs for safety (June 18, '99 issue)
These sites don't purport to be "total safety solutions" for parents. They're simply responsible kids' entertainment providers that keep kids safe within their boundaries. They're designed as clubs so that kids who want to join have to register. Registration spells protection in the sites who do this right. For example, a child has to be a member to chat in or post to discussion boards on these services, and members have gone through that registration screening process. In some cases, the process involves a signed and faxed permission note from parents - something to look for, since kids can fake an e-mail message from parents. We have the FTC to thank for this practice of registering kids for their own protection (as opposed to data collection for resale to third parties!). The sites who do require parent signatures, sent via fax or snail mail, are anticipating FTC children's privacy rules scheduled to come out this summer; they're part of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act passed last fall (for more on this see our April 22 issue).
Three examples of club-type sites requiring registration (not all require parent sigs) are Disney's Club Blast (the only one of the three that charges for membership - $5.95/mo.), FreeZone, and Headbone Zone. All three are known for their sound kids' safety and privacy policies.
At Digital Kids, Disney unveiled its new "BlastPad" software, which members can download to give them instant messaging capabilities with fellow members. In the fall, a "conferencing" feature will be added which will allow up to four kids to "talk" to each other simultaneously via e-mail. Both FreeZone and Headbone Zone monitor chat every minute the rooms are open and screen all kid-provided content (such as Web pages, bulletin board posts, or postcards) before it's posted or sent. Chat rooms also have profanity filters which delete inappropriate language. Headbone has "hbzControls," which give parents the ability to adjust kids' access to communication tools such as chat, email, and their pager feature. Parents can even edit the list of addresses from which kids can receive e-mail. FreeZone doesn't provide its members with e-mail, so it can't control members' use of e-mail addresses in its space and cautions parents to work with their child on a policy about giving out her e-mail address in public area.
Remember, the sites in this category are not "safety solutions" like those above. They're fun places for kids that have excellent safety features. They also provide a safe alternative for chat, for example, which many kids really enjoy and which could otherwise be less "safe" or kid-friendly in other sites on the Web for general audiences of all ages.