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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this third week of June:

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Online safety choices: multiplying like rabbits

Based on a number of conversations we had with children's Web providers at the Digital Kids conference last week, we're seeing some new categories emerging in the children's online safety area. Many are blended solutions, creatively mixing old and new technologies and concepts to come up with products and services that are trying to keep up with the marketplace and its safety expectations. Some can even be blended within a single household - one working best for the littlest kids, another more for pre-teens. They go beyond single-technology products like blocking or monitoring software. (For a very comprehensive, well-organized presentation of those, go to the PEP site for Parents, Educators, and Publishers.)

Choices are proliferating because of the sheer growth* in kids and households going online, as well as the concerns** many parents have about their kids being on the Internet (we have some number for you at the bottom of this feature). Suddenly online safety is big business - top of mind at a conference about kids and the Internet that we thought was going to focus almost entirely on e-commerce - what the Internet industry has identified as its single-biggest revenue source-to-be.

(First, a caveat: We don't endorse products and services; we just report on them. We also don't endorse filtering, monitoring, or any other technology as a solution for all families; we do advise families to work together to develop the mix of policy, rules, and/or tools that works best for them. However, if you have found a particular safety solution useful, please e-mail us - via feedback@netfamilynews.org - so we can share your valuable experience. Or if you try any of these, e-mail us what you think!)

  1. Closed online services for kids

    These are like AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe in the old days, back in the early '90s - in the sense that they're closed online services. Though they use the Internet for distribution, you can't get into them from the Web, and you can't get to the Web from within these services. The difference is the fact that they're for kids (they generally target 2-12-year-olds, but we think 8- or 9-year-olds are probably the outer limit). Because they're closed, they promote themselves as totally safe solutions, which is right for the most part. They have total control over the child's experience, so if you like their values and content, consider your child safe.

    Unlike most online experiences for people who dial up, these are also media-rich, fast-downloading services - which can be important to kids who like to play with CD-ROMs. You could almost call them updatable CD-ROM environments.

    We've looked at two of these. One, Boston-based JuniorNet, just became available this spring; the other, out of Los Angeles, will have many similar features. Both are repackaging famous children's media "brands" for online delivery. In JuniorNet's case, it's Bear in the Big Blue House, Highlights, Zillions (from Consumer Reports), Sports Illustrated Kids, WeeklyReader, and other famous names in print and broadcast. The cost of JuniorNet is $9.95/mo. for up to four kids in a household. There will be no advertising or e-commerce on the service; all their revenue is from subscriptions. For the other service not yet unveiled, revenue sources haven't been finalized, but we suspect there will be a subscription fee.

  2. Toy computers that connect

    These have been around a while - electronic toys designed to teach the basics of computing. Now they'll be teaching the basics of going online. Right now, these products by VTech and Oregon Scientific are text-only, so they only offer e-mail. Oregon Scientific and its subsidiary Safe-Site will also sell a modem ($50) and Internet service ($15/mo.), but they told us virtually any modem will work on the computer. Technically, these $100-$150 products are for the 7-11 age range, but more and more parents are buying them for four- and five-year-olds, an age group that's probably about ready to learn how to do e-mail. There will be a profanity filter, and parents can send Safe-Site a list of e-mail addresses from which the child can receive e-mail - so spam is not a possibility.

    The safety level with these products/services is as high as with JuniorNet and its competitor-to-be, but this is text, folks, a very different experience for kids.

  3. ISPs for kids

    This is a significant jump up from so-called "server-based filtering" - filtering that's done by software on the Internet service provider's server rather than by software on your PC at home. An example is a just-announced, soon-to-be-available service (call it "vaporware"?) called Kids On-Line America, "KOLA" for short.

    Because it's somewhat open to the Internet (depending on age level and parents' decisions), it couldn't be considered as "safe" as the closed services, but parents will still be given a lot of control over their kids' experiences, as well as degrees of control. The categories KOLA gears content and safety controls to are "Kids" (5-6), "Junior" (7-9), "Teen" (10-13), "Senior" (14-17), and "Parents." For "Kids," parents can approve a list of e-mail correspondents, choose and edit lists of sites to be filtered, establish an "e-allowance" for the e-store, etc. Another interesting safety feature we've not heard of before (as such) is KOLA's plan to seek subscribers through corporations, community organizations, and schools, so new subscribers can be verified to be who they say they are (no 69-year-old people posing as children). When KOLA is a full-blown ISP (slated for the end of the year), it will cost $24.95/mo.

  4. Browsers for kids

    Two examples are KiddoNet and Surf Monkey. KiddoNet has a "lite" version that is just a kids' browser. The complete version is also an "environment," a pre-installed interactive playground a bit like JuniorNet, probably, that includes games, sing-along audio (with record and playback features), and "Detective" (older kids find clues out on the 'Net, learning about history, geography, etc., as they go). Kids can go only to sites that have been hand-picked by KiddoNet's "educational multimedia experts" or by their parents (who compile a My Favorites list).

    Surf Monkey, a free children's browser that folds in SurfWatch filtering, is probably the best-known player in this space. Having launched middle of last year, it's not as new as some of the services we're reviewing here, but the category's too important not to include here. This is a pretty safe service, the safety cops would say. Surf Monkey's thought through many safety issues, with profanity screening for e-mail, pre-approved (by parents) e-mail "buddy lists," monitored chat, no "whispering" (private exchanges) in chat. The only problems we could find is the possibility of having grownups pose as children in signing up for the service, and children's ability to launch a different browser on the same machine for unrestricted surfing.

  5. Kids portal + filtering

    Zeeks.com, a brand-new service targeting 6-13-year-olds, wants to be Entertainment and Communications Central, as well as a rose-colored window for kids on the World Wide Web. Young users can play more than 100 games (some multi-player ones soon), create and display their own Web projects and pages, keep a calendar (or personal journal), chat, and do e-mail.

    With its content and bright graphics, Zeeks is a little bit of the very multimedia JuniorNet, with some community and member-provided content thrown in. The participatory, clubby focus will probably be good for Zeeks. A major theme in the online-kids area is how they love to use the Internet not only to connect with each other, but to share and display their work.

    By definition, Zeeks can't be quite as "safe" as a closed online service like JuniorNet, but it is targeting slightly older kids (as opposed to JuniorNet's 3-12-ers). Zeeks has thought through the safety issues thoroughly. They include filtering software; monitored chat and every project page a child posts; have time-out technology so parents can control online time; give parents a password that is the only way to disable Zeeks on the computer; and allow parents to monitor kids' online activities, add sites to the filtering list, and determine who's on the child's e-mail pal list.

    Their filtering software, which is proprietary, uses the "spidering technology" that a lot of search engines use (it unceasingly "crawls" around the Web looking for key words), so Zeeks's lists of sites to be blocked are constantly updated. On top of that, they say, four humans review almost everything the spider turns up as inappropriate, and eight people oversee those four people. Seems a little top heavy, but good intentions, certainly.

    Remember KidDesk? It kept kids away from everything on the family computer except their own stuff? Zeeks reminded some of us of our KidDesk days - it's a kind of online KidDesk. Kids just access the child-appropriate stuff on the computer as well as on the Web. Unlike with some children's browsers, they can't simply minimize Zeeks and launch Netscape; Zeeks has to be disabled with a password by a parent. (BTW, KidDesk does now have a kids browser called KidDesk Internet Safe, with filtering built in, that works with whatever browser the grownups use.)

  6. Kids sites with clubs for safety

    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.

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Nothing's hack-proof

At least it's wise to accept: Nothing open to the Web can be called totally immune to smart young hackers in many families, though a lot of bases have been or will be covered by new services like KOLA and Zeeks. A great source for finding out what filtering software has been hacked or disabled is Peacefire.org, Youth Alliance Against Internet Censorship. This group of young activists offers instructions in its site on how to disable a number of filtering products. And here's a Wired News piece on "How Teens Cracked the Pentagon" even!

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Those numbers we mentioned

* 36.7% of US households (37 million households) are online now, and Jupiter Communications predicts that two-thirds of US households will be connected by 2003; that first figure translates to 83.4 million individual Americans online right now. The breakdown on youth is 22.5 million kids and teens online right now, growing to 42.1 million by 2003. By then, Jupiter says, 56% of all US kids and 72% of all US teens will be online. These figures are in the same ballpark as those offered by other research organizations, but you don't want to be inundated with numbers!

** A May '99 survey conducted for the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center shows conflicting feelings parents have about the Internet. According to ZDNet, on the one hand, parents surveyed "believe that the Internet is an essential tool with positive potential." On the other, they're concerned about their children's access to this essential tool:

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Web News Briefs

  1. Better child-porn detection on the 'Net

    German police predicted a big rise in detection of Internet crime this year, then they delivered solid evidence. According to Reuters via Wired News, Germany's BKA Federal Criminal Police Office "has found 368 instances of child pornography on the Internet so far this year with the help of a new squad dedicated to surfing the Web looking for illegal activity." Those cases have been passed on to local and international law-enforcement agencies; no one knows yet how many will be prosecuted. But detection is a good start!

  2. Not a niche site

    Women in technology (the organization Women in Technology International, actually) just got their own Web site. In fact, it looks a lot like a portal, with news, discussion boards, and a Web directory, all capable of being personalized by the user. According to the Los Angeles Times, it's designed to compete with more general women's sites such as Women.com and iVillage. Here's Wired's coverage of WITI's conference last week, "Queens for Three Days".

  3. COPA's mock trial

    At least at Yale Law School, the Child Online Protection Act got struck down. In an article that might be educational for an aspiring law student at your house, the New York Times describes a mock Supreme Court case in which the majority of "justices" decided that COPA violates the First Amendment in at least four ways. COPA, still making its way through the federal court system, is also called "CDA2," after the Communications Decency Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court in June 1997.

  4. Women surf for sports, too

    Under the headline, "She got game," American Demographics reports that women get their sports on the 'Net, too: 36% of women online check out sports sites for the latest news. Of those, 23% say the Internet is their primary source for sports-related information. About 30% of men rank the Web No. 1 for sports news.

  5. Beyond set-top boxes

    True to most people's expectations of Microsoft, WebTV, a subsidiary, plans to "blanket the consumer electronics market," putting the Web into a whole range of products. The high-end one will be able to record and play back music, the low-end will appeal to first-time Internet users. The audiophiles among us might be interested in this story, found at News.com.

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Random observations from Digital Kids

Some interesting items divined from various roundtables at the conference last week:

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New sponsor!

Net Family News is pleased to announce a new addition to our list of sponsors: Family Shoebox. The Shoebox is a Web space where extended families can - with password-protected privacy - fill photo albums, publish newsletters, have discussions, keep a calendar, and do other family-type stuff across the Internet. As Koz puts it, the Shoebox "is a family-focused initiative hosted by KOZ.com, the leader in extending real-world communities onto the Internet. KOZ sells its flagship product, Community Publishing Systemä (CPS), to newspaper publishers and membership organizations that want to set up Web communities based on real communities, organizations, families, schools, and other groups."

If you know of a company that would like to sponsor Net Family News, please have them contact us - via 801/596-3119 or info@netfamilynews.org.

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

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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