Some really creative thinking has gone into kid online monitoring products lately, and the category is segmenting in interesting ways. More on that in a minute, but what they have in common, thankfully, is that at least the leaders in this space all seem to be acknowledging the importance of baking parent-child communication into product design and allowing parents to calibrate how much privacy … [Read more...] about 3 new products for monitoring online kids
Archives for March 2011
Sexting: What to tell a kid sent nude photos via cellphone
Delete them, plain and simple. That's what criminology professor Justin Patchin at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire advises teens in his blog. Parents, this is not what you'll hear from law enforcement people or school personnel because their jobs require them to obtain and report evidence of a crime. But if kids "follow this advice, they risk prosecution for possession of child porn if a … [Read more...] about Sexting: What to tell a kid sent nude photos via cellphone
How teens can use privacy settings on parents
Chances are, if you have teenagers at your house, you're friends with them on Facebook. The numbers are pretty amazing: 80% of US parents of teens use social network sites; of them 95% are in Facebook; and of those FB-using parents, 86% have friended their kids, according to a recent study. Friending can be very helpful – a casual way of keeping an eye on things (if we don't blow it and comment on … [Read more...] about How teens can use privacy settings on parents
Facebook privacy policy’s new look
The new, much improved privacy policy Facebook just unveiled is more a guide to Facebook's privacy practices than a privacy policy, as Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum told the Wall Street Journal. It's clearer, more conversational, and has more visual aids. Facebook says the company felt the policy "should focus on the questions people who use Facebook are most likely to … [Read more...] about Facebook privacy policy’s new look
Disable geotagging on kids’ smartphones!
If your kids love to take, post, and tag photos with their cellphones and they use smartphones like an iPhone, sit down with them and figure out how to disable geotagging. What's geotagging? It's a bit of software code that smartphones automatically embed in digital photos when you take them, so that – when they're posted online – people can fairly easily map exactly where the photo was taken, … [Read more...] about Disable geotagging on kids’ smartphones!