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June 20, 2003

Dear Subscribers:

It's good to be back with you! Here's our lineup for this third week of June:


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Kids and spam

  1. They're deluged too

    More than 80% of 7-to-18-year-olds get inappropriate spam (junk email selling porn and scams) every day, and more than half feel "uncomfortable" and "offended" by it. That's according to the widely reported results of a new survey of 1,000 US kids from computer security company Symantec. The company "urged parents to educate children about what it termed 'the dangers of spam'," CNET reports. Symantec characterized spam as a "new summer hazard" like "sunburns and snakebites," because 44% of the kids surveyed said that in the summer they were online more than two hours a day (only 23% said they were online that much during the school year). In other key findings...

    • More than 75% of young people surveyed said they had at least one email account (easily obtainable without parents' help and with passwords not accessible to parents, we would add - email us if you're not sure what we mean).
    • Nearly half said they didn't ask permission before giving out their email addresses.
    • More than 20% said their parents had not spoken to them about spam.
    • As for spam topics: 47% said they'd received email with links to pornographic sites; 80% had gotten emails urging them to enter sweepstakes and contests; 62% "relationship-related" email; 61% emails about finance; 55% weight-loss spam; and 51% spam about pharmaceutical drugs.
    • 21% said they opened and read their spam.
    • "The survey also found that, while nine out of ten kids said that they had heard of spam, nearly one in three still do not know whether spam is good or bad for them," according to The Register in its coverage.

    Here's Symantec's press release on the study.

  2. Ideas for parents

    Fortunately, most spam is easily recognizable in an in-box, and it wouldn't take a very long family session in front of the computer to help kids recognize spam, just from a quick skim of 1) email return addresses (is this somebody I know?) and 2) subjects (e.g., body parts, sex, prescription drugs, contests, mortgages, get-rich-quick schemes, photos or a cool new "screensaver" to look at - all nearly guaranteed to be spam). Because even the text in some email subject lines includes obscene language, it helps to just skim and not read closely.

    In cases where kids are as familiar with spam as parents (nothing very unusual!), they can lead the discussion - kids make great tech coaches. Many teenagers already have smart anti-spam techniques. The discussion might also include family members' views on the value of anti-spam tools, such as email filters and ISPs' services - some can do more harm than good (see "How spam blockers could ruin email," in our 5/30 issue).

    It might be helpful to have a family spam policy, with rules informed by parents' and kids' own techniques, such as:

    • "Never open email from anyone you don't know."
    • "If you have a question, ask before deleting or opening."
    • "Don't even preview the really bad emails" (each family has its own definition of "bad").
    • "Parents check email first" (in families with younger kids, probably).

    When we check our own email, we quickly de-spam first - just delete, delete, delete - cleaning out the in-box so we can actually find our legitimate mail and open it with relative peace of mind. But each family will find rules and practices that work best for its own online lifestyle.

    What have we missed, and what are your family's spam rules? We'd love to hear about them (and share them with other readers) - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

  3. The big picture: Global anti-spam efforts heating up

    A number of other reports came out this past week on corporate, government, and other anti-spam initiatives in the works. The Washington Post cites a bipartisan "major push" for tougher measures in the US Congress, as well as intensified lobbying and political maneuvering. "With outrage over spam at fever pitch, Congress is widely expected to pass the first national anti-spam law this year," the Post reports. The third iteration of a bill sponsored by Sens. Conrad Burns (R) of Montana and Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon was unanimously approved by the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday - the first and most well-known of several anti-spam bills in both Houses to have advanced this week, the Post reports . Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission has weighed in, asking Congress for more power to combat spam, according to the Post in another article. One of the points made by the commissioners, in testimony before House and Senate committees, was that "spammers increasingly have moved their operations offshore, to further cloak their identities and evade prosecution."

    In Europe, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development called on its 30 member states (including the US, UK, Japan, and Germany) "to cooperate in the fight against international fraud," clearly alluding to spam, CNET reports. The OECD published government guidelines for protecting consumers from cross-border fraud (here's the OECD's Web page on this effort).

    This week Microsoft announced its own international anti-spam push, announcing it was suing 15 spammers in the US and UK. "Microsoft said its domestic suits also have an international dimension. In one suit, against an alleged California spammer, the email server in question was registered in Belize," CNET reports. Microsoft accused the spammers of "collectively flooding its systems and customers with more than 2 billion deceptive spam messages," the Associated Press reports. Microsoft is not alone. "All of the large Internet service providers, including America Online, Earthlink and Yahoo, have started filing lawsuits against e-mailers that they say are sending spam," the New York Times reports. BNA Internet Law provided a link to FindLaw.com's page on the Microsoft complaints (linking to pdf files of the 13 US lawsuits).

    Beyond the breaking news, here's a thorough backgrounder on "the spam crisis" (technologies to legalities) from MIT's Technology Review.

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Family Tech: Recommended research tool

It's a given that kids like to use the Internet for research (one look at college students' research habits found fewer than 2% chose not to use the Net - see our 5/30 issue). So we figure a lot of parents and teachers are looking for good Web-based resources. In his recent syndicated column, SafeKids.com's Larry Magid reviews one such tool: GuruNet.com. More a library than a single encyclopedia and a Net/offline hybrid, it's quick to download, "incredibly easy to use," and gives the user access to information from any application (from Word to a Web browser to Eudora). Larry compares the $39.99 service with online encyclopedias and free reference sites.

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Web News Briefs

  1. Blurry law on Harry Potter fan sites

    The release this week of the 5th Harry Potter novel raised another media ruckus, of course. The Washington Post points out the noteworthy fuzzy legal line between fair use and copyright violation for fan fiction writers and Web site owners. It also takes a thoughtful look at why the genre has exploded on the Net. "Fan-fiction creators say their work represents the emergence of an art form that takes advantage of all that the Internet was built for," according to the Post. "They invoke the First Amendment and say that under fair-use laws they have a right to create what they want as long as they are not trying to profit at the expense of the original material. But some book, music and movie houses argue that fan fiction is more plagiarism than high art and have demanded that operators of Web sites remove the offending material." Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling herself is flattered by genuine fan fiction, reports the Post, quoting an attorney for her literary agency, but she has a problem with Harry Potter- related pornographic material that has reared its head on the Net.

    Fan fiction is huge on the Internet, and Harry Potter has inspired one of the largest collections. The Post says that on FanFiction.net alone, the "granddaddy" of such sites, there are some 75,000 stories about Harry. One of the most popular fan fiction sites is SugarQuill.net, the Post says, with 1,300 stories and 650 illustrations, cartoons, and other art from 500 writers and artists. Before the Net made it so everyone can "publish," fan fiction was just a fringe hobby, with type- or hand-written manuscripts sent around by friends with shared interests. Besides potential instant visibility, what writers love about Web-based fan fiction is the instant feedback and the collaboration it allows. Here's a BBC piece on this same subject published later this week.

    For an inside look at one young fan site owner's successful tussle with a media giant, see "How a 15-year-old Webmaster took on Warner Bros." in our Feb. 21 issue.

  2. A 'Parents Place' at the FCC

    The Federal Communications Commission has a new site for parents about kids and the telephone, TV, the Internet, the Emergency Alert System, and cable in the classroom. The information is a little selective. For example, so far the section on "Internet - Content Access" only has a blurb on the Children's Internet Protection Act, which only concerns kids' use in school and at public libraries and is still being challenged in the courts. The telephone section is just about fee-based 900 numbers, but includes tips for responsible phone use. The TV section is more inclusive, with information on educational programming, the Children's Television Act of 1990, ratings, the V-chip, and rules about ad restrictions around children's programs and ad blocking. The site is useful as an easily navigable, at-a-glance resource on where the FCC's work relates to children.

  3. NASA, the Planetary Society blog for kids

    From astronauts to astrobots. Because, as Wired News reports, unmanned space missions aren't nearly as interesting as ones with people aboard, NASA and the Planetary Society got really creative to make the Mars Exploration Rovers' latest mission interesting for kids. They 1) created two "astrobots" - Sandy Moondust and Biff Starling - made of Legos, who are traveling virtually - on a DVD onboard the Mars rovers, and 2) the astrobots are recording their space adventures in a blog. Well, actually, their friend Bruce Betts, "Chief of the Astrobot Corps" and director of projects for the Planetary Society, is helping the bots keep kids posted on their travels by writing their blog entries. "The blogged information [is] based on real astronauts' experiences with space travel, spacecraft engineering information from NASA scientists, and research from the current and previous Mars explorations," according to Wired News. Too bad school's out in the US - maybe students in countries where school's in session will enjoy this blog as much as the high school teacher Wired mentions, who checks the blog several times a day. Here are "The Astrobot Diaries". [The nonprofit Planetary Society was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman to encourage the exploration of our solar system and the search for extraterrestrial life," according to its Web site.]

  4. Senator's surprise on file-sharing

    The powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah, made a surprising, widely reported comment this week. In a joint hearing on copyright abuses, he said he "favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet," according to the Washington Post. The Post added that "legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws." Other senators urged Hatch to reconsider his position, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat (from Vermont) and Rep. Rick Boucher (D) of Virginia, who has bee active in copyright debates. UK-based The Register puts it a bit more irreverently: "Orrin Hatch goes off his meds." The day after the hearing, Hatch released a statement clarifying his remarks. The Washington Post Thursday ran a handy roundup of the latest file-sharing, from Hatch's comment to "cease and desist" letters the record industry trade association fired off to the four file-sharers whose identities Verizon was ordered by a court to turn over to the RIAA. And here's the Post on Kazaa's response to Congress's anti-spam discussions (Kazaa is the most popular P2P service, claiming it's been dowloaded 230+ million times).

  5. New job title: 'Online auction concierge'

    They're also called e-auction assistants. They help people who are either Internet-shy or very busy to auction off their dust-collecting stuff online. The New York Times tells of 34- year-old, Manhattan-based eBay devotee Mike Beeferman, who helped a couple unload accumulated art objects when they moved from a house to an apartment. He charges a listing fee of $5 per item, plus 20-40% of the selling price. "Out of that, he pays fees charged by eBay for listing goods for sale, which vary from as little as 30 cents to a percentage of the sale price, depending on the item," according to the Times. EBay has even "formalized" this job category. "The company began a formal program for the assistants in February 2002. It allows them to advertise their services free in an online directory that can be searched by ZIP code or merchandise category, and it provides subsidies for local print advertisements," the Times reports, adding that there are now some 21,000 assistants listed in the worldwide directory.

  6. Suicide site could be shut down

    Though information about suicide is available in books, it's even more accessible on the Internet. A St. Louis prosecutor is considering bringing voluntary manslaughter charges against a Web site that provides information on how to commit suicide by asphyxiation. The prosecutor says the site was used by a 52-year-old St. Louis woman who took her life on June 2. Printouts from the Web site were found nearby, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. A legal expert cited by the Post-Dispatch said he understands the desire to prosecute, but he added that prosecutors would have a difficult time trying to prove that the people behind the Web site intended one of its readers to kill herself, and that's how voluntary manslaughter is defined. "A Web site is a passive provider of information, so the connection is more difficult to prove," according to the article. The Web site in question is run by something called "the Church of Euthanasia." Our thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this item out.

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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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