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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this second week of September:

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Web ratings: Two steps forward

It's been a big week for what might be called the slowest, most "democratic" approach to children's online safety: Web site ratings systems. Which we know raises two questions: 1) Why the slowest approach, and 2) why was this an important week?

Q#1: Rating Web sites is like the tortoise to the hare that represents all other online-safety products and services. The reasons: It's an industry-wide self-regulatory effort, and it's global (because the Web is). Like movie studios, Web publishers would have to let the public know whether their sites include profanity, violence, sexually explicit material, etc. Then they'd all have to use an Internet standard like PICS technology (see the World Wide Web Consortium's PICS FAQ) that "tells" our browsers how the site is rated. And Web publishers all over the world would have to comply for the system to work. But voluntary self-regulation isn't the only difficulty: Free-speech advocates all over the world say Internet ratings are a short cut to censorship, making it easier for governments to censor content on the Internet, so they're trying to apply the brakes. Also, users - the "marketplace," so to speak - don't know enough about Web ratings to demand publishers' compliance or government support.

Which brings us to why this was an important week for this online-safety option: The Bertelsmann Foundation - associated with Bertelsmann A.G., one of the world's biggest media conglomerates - held a Web-ratings summit this week to discuss the most ambitious proposal on the subject yet. Corporate executives, children's advocates, free-speech advocates, government representatives, and experts in law and technology were all there. One effort they discussed was that of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA, in Cambridge, England, and the Washington, D.C., area) to make the US's ratings system an international one, according to Wired News. The New York Times and ZDNet both emphasized the opposition faced by the ICRA and the Bertelsmann Foundation from free-speech advocates. (There's a page in the GetNetWise.org online-safety site that discusses US-based ratings efforts to date.)

We'll let you know if any conclusions were reached at the summit, but - for now - the bottom line is: The summit was a step forward for an important initiative and discussion. Something involving this many corporations, constituencies, and governments by definition moves slowly, but visibility and discussion spell progress.

We mentioned two steps forward. The second, we propose, is a relatively new and unsung online-safety tool available in the United States (we understand they're moving on to more marketing). We'll tell you why it, too, advances the discourse….

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For your consideration: a new online-safety tool

First, our standard caveat: There are many Net safety tools on the market - filtering, monitoring, kids' browsers, filtering ISPs, ratings systems, etc. You can read about them at GetNetWise.org (we're on the Advisory Board). We don't recommend them per se, because it's an individual family decision - what tools to use and whether to use them at all. But we will let you know about trends, technologies, and individual products when we think they're worth your consideration.

This week we spoke with the makers of PlanetGood. We think you should know about it because it's a trailblazer. It doesn't fit any familiar categories - it's not just a kid browser, not filter or blocking software, not a filtered Internet service provider, not a site rating system - but, in a creative way, PlanetGood combines all those things. And its makers, an Indianapolis-based company called BrowseSafe, very handily hands over to parents all judgment on what is/isn't appropriate Web content for kids.

Just how do they do that? you might ask. They punt. Really. But let us explain: BrowseSafe has 30 parent-and-educator Web site reviewers who, CEO Mark Smith says, have analyzed 200,000 of the nearly 800,000 sites on the Web, at a rate of 9,000 sites a week. Their goal is to reach the review rate of 15,000 sites a week by next month (we'll come back to this ambition). But they don't pass judgment on any site - they let parents decide what kinds of material their kids can access. They do that by simply organizing the sites (even sections of sites that have, say, chat or gambling or e-commerce) into about 35 content categories. These are standard-issue categories like gambling, violence, profanity, and nudity and more refined ones like art nudity, medical anatomy, and medical sexual terminology - but more numerous and detailed than, say, a movie rating system.

As for pornography, it's simply blocked for any PlanetGood customer. Mark says the company has a database of more than 100,000 pornography sites which is continuously updated and which grows by 1,000s of sites a week. The company's servers automatically block these. From there, parents can make the product more restrictive, depending on age/maturity levels in their home.

The system really works a lot like the US's movie-rating system - and illustrates nicely how an international Web ratings system should work. Parents decide if "PG-13" or "R" is right for their child. The difference is, movie studios voluntarily rate films; not enough of the zillions of Web sites do. The reason why the US's Internet ratings systems don't work is because compliance isn't yet universal. So BrowseSafe has taken it upon itself to do the ratings. What makes its effort more feasible than others is a technology the company has that tells users when they've happened upon a site that hasn't been rated yet. With it, they can click a "Submit" button that sends a review request to the BrowseSafe server (sites are usually rated within 24 hours, Mark says). With this Submit technology, BrowseSafe's own customers actually help the company keep up.

Here's how PlanetGood works: For $5 a month (added to a family's Internet service provider's fee), users receive a CD that piggybacks on their preferred browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator/Communicator. They dialup to their ISP, and - when they go out on the Web - their PlanetGood browser sends them through its company servers. It's the servers at BrowseSafe that block pornography as well as all the other content parents have "told" the browser they don't want to see. The PlanetGood browser has three levels (with their own passwords) for which parents can configure what's acceptable: "PlanetWow!" for kids 10 and under, "PlanetCool!" for 11-to-16-year-olds, and "PlanetHome!" for everybody else. A new feature, PlanetStealth, which includes security against kids' efforts to hack the system, CEO Mark says, also allows parents to control what Internet technologies kids can access: chat programs, audio and video players, other browsers, etc.

Getting back to the numbers - BrowseSafe's ambitious goal of keeping pace with all the new Web sites going online each day. Few toolmakers would tackle the daunting task of reviewing them all. Most rely solely on "spider" technology that continuously "crawls" through Web sites looking for keywords like "sex" or "bombs," then blocking sites containing those words. PlanetGood uses it, too, to find new sites, but for the end-user focuses more on its reviewing process because, Mark says, technology can't be as discerning as human reviewers are.

But what about keeping up with the Web's growth? we asked. "It is only a matter of time and people. Our Submit technology is unique to the industry and is the fastest way to incorporate new sites, as well as sites our customers want to view most. In fact, the most popular sites, where most of the Internet audience spends most of its time, have already been reviewed!" We hope it gets easier for them, because we like efforts to categorize Web content so parents can decide what works for their own children.

To keep him on his toes, we also asked Mark if, by going through an extra server, surfers get slowed down. He answered: "Technically yes and then maybe no ... let me explain. It is true that the user is slowed by a few hundred milliseconds (100 milliseconds = 1/10 of a second) to pass through our system, however, this fraction of a second is countered by having sites cached on our system and by technology that transmits data through the shortest available path - something most ISPs do not offer. In reality, using a modem or higher bandwidth utilities, the user doesn't see any noticeable difference in speed, one way or the other."

So what's different about this product/service is its philosophy (give the judgment to parents, like any good ratings system), its goals (actually rate all the sites on the Web!), the technologies it combines (the usual Web-crawler one many filters use and its own user-submit technology), and the way it works (users go out on the Web through an ISP and BrowseSafe's servers). That's why we think it's breaking new ground.

We'll be attending a conference called "Interactive Kids" in San Francisco next week and will be looking for other new online-safety tools and concepts. Meanwhile, if any of you try PlanetGood, tell us what you think. If you're happy with another product, or you don't believe in filtering or ratings at all, we'd love to hear about it - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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Web News Briefs

  1. Teachers technologically challenged

    Remember the rather significant ed-tech statistics we reported last week?: Research group Quality Education Data expects 100% of US schools to have Internet access by the end of this school year. Well, that's both good news and bad news from a number of perspectives. The positives are familiar: tech literacy for future careers, access to the global "library without walls," etc. One downside is highlighted by a survey of teachers cited in the New York Times: Only 39% of teachers polled said they feel well-prepared to use technology in their teaching. And that may be tough to change, because 51% of them gave their schools the grades "fair" or "poor" for technology training and support. Here's what we'll probably see happening: More and more young, tech-literate teachers will be joining teaching staffs and helping their colleagues integrate new technologies into classroom work. The Times has much more on this.

    Meanwhile, Microsoft, IBM, and other corporations that sell technology products and services are putting serious money into helping teachers. According to Wired News, Microsoft said it plans to spend $26.6 million in software and cash on teacher training programs in the coming year. The company also says more than 3,500 US teachers participated this year in its "summer institutes" designed to help teachers integrate tech into their teaching. In the article, Wired mentions some smart teachers who are using new technologies as an opportunity to build student self-esteem by letting their students teach them a thing or two.

  2. Free connecting with a fresh twist

    Here's a company that's not only offering free Internet service - they're offering it advertising-free! Advertising is usually what we users get inundated with when we accept these freebie deals. That's usually what pays for the service. Well, according to Wired News, the ISP, WorldSpy, is calling their business model a "customer acquisition vehicle" (don't ya love the bizspeak?). They plan to have 12 million subscribers in 12 months, which means they plan to compete with AOL (which had 18 million subscribers at last count) with a different business model - no subscriptions, no advertising. They're banking on the e-commerce opportunity, with plans to survive on commissions from the online transactions their subscribers make. It would be interesting to know how they plan to find the biggest online shoppers!

  3. Mega media marriage

    For anyone interested in the rapidly changing face of music on the Internet, huge mergers, or both, the New York Times has covered Viacom's acquisition of CBS exceedingly thoroughly. In "A New Force in Distributing Music Across the Internet", the Times says the deal (which involves, among other properties, MTV and the US's largest radio-station chain) is the biggest media merger ever. CBS has 163 radio stations, and none of them have started broadcasting (often called "cybercasting") on the Net yet. This may change now: Viacom owns SonicNet.com, a music news and technology company that helps radio stations put their programming on the Web. The Times has a whole slew of articles on the subject (links listed at the top of each piece), with an overview and pieces about the personalities involved, the money they're making on the deal, and reactions in the industry (saying the deal will trigger more media mergers). The FCC's reaction was reported on by Associated Press, via Boston.com. And News.com looks at how Viacom and CBS will manage all their Web sites - now that's a good question!

  4. Watching our kids on the Web?!

    According to USAToday, daycare centers and preschools across America are installing digital video cameras so parents can go on the Web and see how their kids are doing. There are companies that stand to make a lot of money wiring childcare facilities for this purpose. USAToday gave the story an interesting angle, saying that, since we're doing this at work, this is soon to become a new productivity concern for our employers. The piece indicates that there is a debate about whether being able to see that our children are fine increases or decreases productivity. What do you think? Do email us.

  5. Net communications basics

    This item's a little old, but we've been hanging onto it because it's a nice primer on Net-based communications. It might be useful to friends, relatives or students (or teachers, for that matter!) who are new to Net resources like the publishing list we're all using right now. It explains email lists and newsgroups and has some nice links to Web resources for efficient use of those communications tools. Here's "Finding Forums on the Internet" from Reuters via BUILDER Online.

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Porn spam: A subscriber writes, AOL responds

Subscriber Helen, who is also a subscriber to America Online, wrote us about her frustration with "spam" (junk email) that advertises pornographic material on the Web. We forwarded her message to an online-safety expert at AOL, and here are both question (Helen) and answer (AOL):

Helen:

"Is there anything I can do to eradicate this persistent porn email I'm plagued with? Each time I get one I reply by asking them to remove my address from their book immediately. I've kept track of the addresses and haven't gotten a repeat from any of them but I keep getting new ones. This morning, after being gone for a long weekend, I believe I had 16 messages with most of them being porn. I'm sick of it! What can I do?"

AOL:

"We share your concern in this matter.… We know that junk email - also known as "spam" - is a very frustrating problem. Whether it comes from the Internet or from another AOL member, junk email is an inconvenience and is strictly against AOL's Terms of Service (TOS), which prohibit junk email of any kind…. Please be assured that AOL does not provide your email address to any junk emailer. These names are collected through a variety of methods including capturing screen names in chat rooms, on bulletin boards, from the Usenet, and through random searches of our Member Directory.

"AOL Technologies has made tremendous strides in battling junk email. Today AOL delivers almost 50 million pieces of email each day to AOL members, and our anti-spam technologies enable us to block 8-10 million pieces of junk email before it enters our network. We've also put technological tools directly into the hands of our members.

"To learn more about how you can help stop spam from getting into your mailbox go to Mail Controls (Keyword: Mail Controls). Mail Controls allows members to choose from what sources they want to receive email and block spam from specific Internet address domains. The Mail Controls function allows members to make their email choices quickly and conveniently.

"To help us identify junk emailers, we ask members to forward junk email to the "TOSSpam" mailbox. We know that sometimes it is easier to simply delete a piece of mail, but it is important for members to forward this spam to us so we can track the source.

"To keep our members informed about what we are doing on this issue, we provide an area called Junk Mail (keyword: JUNK MAIL). Members can learn not only what AOL is doing to stop junk mailers, but also how they can join the fight. As part of our anti-spam efforts, AOL recently launched a new area to provide tips for keeping yourself off of spammers' emailing lists (see Stop Unwanted Emails). We are also continuing to pursue a multi-pronged attack against spam that includes aggressive legal actions against junk emailers, continued technological research and development of spam filters, as well as an ongoing member awareness program.

"On the legal front, AOL has filed suit against more than two dozen different companies or spammers who have been sending bulk email to AOL members. The Company has successfully obtained court orders barring six of these companies from bulk emailing. Last March, we announced AOL's 10 Most Wanted Spammers List and in December we filed nine new lawsuits against spammers across the country and won three more cases. We are pleased with the significant progress that we have made to date, but we also recognize that there is more to be done. We are determined to continue our efforts to fight junk email in the courts.

"Again, thank you for your email by way of Net Family News. We will continue to report to you online as we keep making progress against spam. Please let us know if we can provide you with further information."

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Of Macintoshes

In response to our item last week on Apple's new "supercomputer", subscriber Vicki in Ohio wrote:

"I own a G3 and would not consider buying anything but a Mac. In my mind, they are far superior and more user friendly."

Thanks, Vicki. We love to hear from subscribers, so if you have a reaction or reflection, drop us an email anytime - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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