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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this last week of April:


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New online-safety products

They're popping up all over the place these days! Here are two new ones you might want to know of: ChildWatch, what might be called a filtering + desktop management product (see variations in our report on "super browsers" two weeks ago, and a sophisticated real-time monitoring and family communications tool called iForAll.

  1. iForAll

    You know how a lot of parents are using pagers to keep track of their teenagers? Well, you might call this product a "pager" for when they're on the Internet. IForAll is next-generation monitoring software designed to do two quite unique things:

    • Lets parents track kids' at-home online activities while the parents are at work. Mom, Dad, or both (from separate workplaces) - or how about Granddad from his house?! - can see what's going on on up to three computers in realtime (they're not just looking at history files, they're looking at a computer screen at the same time the child is). All this monitored activity takes place in a "window" that can be made any size on one's computer screen at work, so the parent can work while monitoring.

    • Allows for two-way instant-messaging communications between parent and child while they're both looking at the same Web page or chat room.


    What all this means is, parent and child can surf together from remote locations. This might sound very big-brother-ish, or at least not very trusting, but we like the positive message InFORall is sending with its marketing. Product manager Steve Schmidt says the software "allows kids to grow up on the Internet with their parents' help" - while giving parents the flexibility of not having to be in the same room when the child's online. Certainly, parents can view the product as a spying tool, but if they feel the need to monitor kids online, they can be up front about it (instead of secretly viewing browser history files). And they can use the instant-messaging feature in a positive way as a family communication enhancer.

    Other iForAll features include:

    • Filtering via a database of blocked sites that parents can edit, based on self-rated Web sites. This is not one of the product's strong points - there are a lot of "objectionable" sites that haven't opted to rate themselves under the PICS-based Internet rating system. See GetNetWise for more on Web rating.
    • Online activity record-keeping (a bit like browser history files) for asynchronous (non-realtime) monitoring.
    • Replaying of chat activity.
    • Remote "locking down" of home computers (no other remote control, remembering it's meant to be a monitoring and communications tool).
    • Listing of all incoming and outgoing email addresses and instant messages.

    IForAll can be downloaded for $60 ("about the price of a video game," the company says) from the company Web site.

    We were interested to hear that this software comes out of industrial technology that systems administrators use to monitor various parts of a manufacturing process. InFORall founder and chief tech officer Nega Gebreyesus put that capability on the Internet and added the instant-messaging piece. Fun to know where things come from! The company's next application, we're told, is for Net-based, wireless family communications using any device. It turns a home-based PC into a communications "hub." So Mom on a business trip can use her palmtop to look at the family and school calendar that resides on the home-PC communications "hub" - then have an instant-message "chat" with her ninth-grader about his homework that night. Any family member using any device from anywhere will supposedly be able to "input," "store," and "view" anything on the "hub." Always new vocabulary to learn!

    Of course, we believe, truly sophisticated use of any technology is based on solid family groundrules (such as an Internet acceptable-use policy that family members hammer out together) that grow out of good communication and respect going in all directions.

  2. ChildWatch

    ChildWatch is a free online-safety tool that combines filtering, monitoring, a time-out mechanism, and computer management. It's the product of a partnership between a software company, Pacel Corp., and Texaco-sponsored Child Watch of North America, a nonprofit organization that focuses on recovering missing children.

    With this product, parents can control how much time kids spend online, where they go online, and what applications and even documents they can use on the computer, Pacel says. Internet filtering is the part that isn't free. For a monthly fee of $5, parents can access and edit the "black list" of blocked sites that have been reviewed by ChildWatch's panel of "experts" (including, the company says, "local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, judicial representatives, and child psychologists"). In keeping with its parent organization's mission, ChildWatch comes with a screen saver that displays the faces of missing children. To us, the software sounds like a less powerful version of the "super browser" we reported on a few weeks ago, Activator Desk.

    If any of you try either of these products and would like to comment on the experience, fellow subscribers would probably appreciate your perspective. Please email us.

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Web News Briefs

  1. That other law: Checking in on COPA

    Which is better? Restrict children's Internet experience by law (the Children's Online Protection Act, or COPA) or by individual choice (through filtering products and services)? That's the basic question in the latest effort to figure out what to do with COPA (not to be confused with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which went into effect last week (see our coverage).

    In "Feds try odd anti-porn approach", Wired News reports that the US Justice Department is "quietly recruiting" academic critics of Net filtering software to testify in favor of COPA. Wired says the idea is to show how flawed filtering tools are so that the court will decide that pornography on the Internet must be made a crime and thus let COPA go into effect.

    COPA is sometimes referred to as a sequel to the Communications Decency Act that the US Supreme Court struck down in '97. After Congress passed COPA in October 1998, US District Judge Lowell Reed granted a preliminary injunction against COPA in February '99. The Justice Department appealed, and arguments were heard before the appellate court last November. Not much news until this week's rumors about Justice Dept. contingency plans: Wired says, "the government appears to be girding itself for defeat before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and a subsequent full-blown trial in Philadelphia before Judge Reed." For more on COPA, please see our editorial last November.

    It's an ongoing story, but an important one involving free-speech rights, how to deal with a global public medium, and how children are best protected from sexually explicit material on it. If you have a comment on what should happen to COPA, we'd love to hear it. Please email us.

  2. All things Microsoft

    Much more interesting (to us, anyway) than US v. Microsoft was USAToday's story, "Teens tell Microsoft where to go today". The fact that Microsoft is working with consultants Matthew Furdyk, 17 (who was a "dot-com millionaire" at 16), and Jennifer Corriero, 19 (who was a computer consultant at the ripe age of 15), on a project that explores how people work and live with the Internet is a good sign for the litigation-rich software company. Whatever the implications, today's are the most market- and media-wise teenagers ever, and we wonder about the future of any consumer products company that fails to tap their street smarts.

    But, since it's the tech world's biggest story of the week, we would be remiss if we didn't link you to the latest news on the proposed Microsoft breakup. Wired News has an ever-growing compendium, "US v. Microsoft." Here's the New York Times's analysis of the possibilities for a breakup, with links to other articles there. Then there's Reuters's piece on Microsoft's reaction, via ZDNet. And CNET reports that a panel of judges has consolidated 27 (count 'em!) of Microsoft's private antitrust suits to a single court in Maryland. Finally, as of this writing, the latest news from the Associated Press says details of a plan to break up will be released today (Friday), but a Christian Science Monitor analysis says it's hard to make breakups stick.

  3. Networking the house

    This article's not for everybody. But it's fabulous for any handy person actually thinking about doing the wiring for his or her own home ethernet. It's a blow-by-blow in ComputerUser.com of how one dad and software engineer achieved this: "It has not only enabled me to have a home network for file and print sharing, but also allowed my family to connect to the Internet from just about every room, via my always-on cable Internet connection." If that's the dream, this article is for your family. If any of you have lived the dream (or have no interest and want to say why), do email us about the experience.

  4. College class on 'hate.com'

    In a communications class next fall, students at Emerson College in Boston will be looking at how radical groups use hate and the Internet to target and recruit new members, according to the Associated Press (via CompuServe.com). There are various estimates of the number of hate sites on the Web. The AP cites figures from the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center (estimating more than 800 hate- and violence-related Web sites) and the Southern Poverty Law Center watchdog organization ("more than 300 extremist sites"). For more on this, see our interview last July with Ray Franklin, publisher of The Hate Directory, which tracks hate and bigotry mailing lists, newsgroups, FTP sites, chatrooms, and other Internet venues, as well as Web sites.

  5. Spam relief?

    Well, maybe some information on the latest in spam self-help. For example, Wired News says that, even though spammers are onto it already, one technique is "to identify the source of the spam. Then contact the abuse desk at the Internet service provider where the spammer has an account and ask them to terminate the service." Other "pieces of ammo" are Spamcop.net and SamSpade.org, spam-tracking services. If you try any of these, do email us what you think.

  6. Napster the underdog

    Not everyone's against the controversial music-sharing company (Napster allows users to trade and search for MP3 music files on each other's hard drives). Unlike Metallica, hard rock band Limp Bizkit has decided Napster is a good thing, according to Reuters (via ABCNEWS.com. Limp Bizkit is working with Napster to promote its third album. Also this week, CNET reported that the University of Southern California joined Yale and Indiana Universities in banning or restricting Napster use on campus, due to Metallica's law suit against them and Napster. Meanwhile, another artist has "raised the stakes" in all this Net music litigation: Rap artist Dr. Dre is suing not only universities, but students as well, according to CNET.

  7. Avon calls on Gateway

    For computer makers, it looks like selling PCs to individual customers will soon be passe. CNET reports that Avon's contract with Gateway to provide computers to 500,000 US Avon reps, and possibly eventually to 2.5 million employees worldwide, may indicate a big change in the way people get their computers. Avon joins Ford Motor Company and Delta Airlines in supplying employees with free PCs.

* * * *

'Internet addiction': A subscriber writes

Subscriber Bev in Georgia writes about a case of "Internet addiction" in her family. If anyone would like to offer her advice or has a comment on this fairly controversial subject, we'd appreciate hearing from you.

"As a new subscriber, I read with great interest and appreciation your most informative update on the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)…. It is encouraging to know that it sets in motion a process that involves greater accountability and responsibility from Internet companies, government, educators, guardians, and especially parents and their children…. Indeed, we should ...'all continue to pay attention because COPPA is being seen as a test for whether similar privacy rules should, or will, be applied to all Internet users.'

"As a new stepmom to a 16-year-old stepson who continues to spend excessive amounts of time on the Internet chatlines and online computer games, my husband and I are desperately searching for any information, software features…, and support that help in approaching older teens who are hooked on the game playing and chatrooms on the Internet. We bought the computer primarily as a work and schoolwork research tool. Using the billing feature on our AOL, we can trace the excessive amount of time that has continued to increase and we struggle to reach adherence from him to limiting his time spent on the computer on games up to 2 hours weekdays and 2-1/2 on weekends. This has been a huge issue and challenge to keep harmony with him…. As parents, we are now having to impose concrete guidelines using a daily log-in sheet to help him and us develop a monitoring device to balance his use of time. We are aware of the very helpful Parental Controls features that AOL provides, which now has an additional feature that enables us to further set a timer on his tendency to loose track of time, but so far we have not resorted to it. We hope we can honor our teenager's ability to develop self-control, inner discipline, and accountability and trust him, and we are working hard to heal what appears to be a case of 'Internet addiction.' He does say he craves the excitement and challenge of playing computer games that most often involve graphic bloody battles.

"We have used the History feature of the Windows program to be aware of the sites visited and are alarmed at how easily porn hyperlinks target our youth while they are using chatlines. So we set more safety controls to prevent inadvertent or curious exploration of objectionable sites targeting especially teens at an age where they are most vulnerable. We have made it a household rule/honor system to avoid downloading anything from the Internet unless it relates to schoolwork or is sent by relatives and not to open any hyperlinks. If you have any further advice on how to approach teens/adolescents especially 15-17 years of age, we would deeply appreciate it and will share with other families, neighbors, and loved ones."

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

Sincerely,

Net Family News

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