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March 15, 2002

Dear Subscribers:

Do any of you use the V-chip at home to screen out TV programs not appropriate for children? We're asking because a New York-based news show with Japan's TV Asahi would like to interview an American family using the V-chip - for a story they're developing, timed to a Japanese government move to protect young media consumers. If anyone's interested (the interview would be in your home, preferably on or near the East Coast), please give the producer, Kaz Ozawa, a call at 212.333.5600. She needs to hear from you by around March 20. If you have any question, certainly feel free to email us. For more information on the V-chip, see this great resource: "A Parent's Guide to TV Ratings and the V-Chip."

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

• Family Tech: A mom's IM-monitoring story
  
• A subscriber writes: A religious view of filtering
  
• Web News Briefs: Half a billion online at home; 'Digital divide' refined; 'Google-bombing'; Universities & file-swappers; Pennsylvania ISPs; Netscape tracks you; Wi-Fi, when?....

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Family Tech: A mom's IM-monitoring story

Betsy in Michigan recently emailed us that she stumbled upon three separate instant messages (IMs) on her 15-year-old daughter's computer. In one, Susan (not her real name) was chatting about illegal drugs; in another, she was "soliciting a boy for sex," Betsy said; and in the third IM a boy was talking about killing himself.

"These were all kids my daughter knows," Betsy told us later in a phone interview. "It took me about a week to find out who these kids were," based on their IM screen names. She did so by monitoring Susan and her friends' IMs and picking up on clues in them. For example, the girl who mentioned marijuana in brownies and in another IM mentioned she was having oral surgery, later said to Susan and Betsy in the car that her mouth hurt. When Betsy asked her about it, the girl said she'd just had surgery. Betsy could then put real name and screenname together.

"My husband thought [Susan] was kidding about the drugs, that she was just being stupid," Betsy said, but "we weren't sure if she was abusing drugs or not." So they had her take a drug test, and she tested negative. For Susan, anyway, the IMs were talk not action.

The sexual solicitation was more peer talk, Betsy thinks, because in her IMs Susan would tell everyone she's a virgin, but Betsy added that Susan also let her friends know that she wants to change that. "The boy she solicited, to his credit, didn't take her up on it," Betsy said.

As for references to suicide, Betsy told us she asked her daughter if the boy who mentioned it to her in his IM tells other kids about wanting to kill himself. "She said, 'yeah.' So I gave their school guidance counselor his screen name" and any other information she could find, she told us. "I didn't know who his parents were," Betsy said, "but the school was able to find him, and he's in counseling now. My daughter said she got a lot of flak because I 'turned him in'."

We don't generally recommend secrecy on parents' part, when it comes to monitoring kids' computer use (because being open about monitoring can be a good deterrent for online kids and a tool for good parent-child communication), so we asked Betsy why she feels secrecy was legitimate in her family's case. "Because she hadn't been up front about what she was doing and she was spending way too much time on the Net, and I had to find out if she was lying about drug use or just puffing herself up, and I also had to know which of her friends were druggies. I knew a couple of them were using drugs. We have a whole different level of monitoring when we suspect drug use.

"I come from a doctor/lawyer philosophy," Betsy continued. "All kids should have privacy, but if you have reason to know a kid's in trouble, you have to do everything in your power to get all the information about them you can so you can help them. [Susan] left two IMs open on her screen - one about drugs, one about sex. She'd reduced them down so they were on the task bar on the bottom. I wanted to close them before I did anything, so I opened them up, read them, and thought, 'Whoa, what's this?' You shouldn't go searching kids' rooms all the time for drugs or read their diaries. It's like the police, who don't go searching every household - they need probable cause. A parent has to approach it that way."

It was stumbling on those IMs that gave Betsy her "probable cause." She heard about "PowerTools" for "enhanced instant-messaging" on AOL from a segment on the "Oprah" TV show about online security. The URL for its maker, BPS Software, was on Oprah's Web site. But that software didn't work for Betsy. It was "way too much," she told us." It completely took over my AOL screen and changed it in many ways, visually and functionally. It also would only log IMs created on AOL - not IMs created on the separate AIM software [for non-AOL subscribers]."

So she contacted BPS Software, and they told her about a product they were beta-testing called "AIM Frame." That was the product she used to monitor Susan's IM-ing. It worked just fine, but after Susan - with the help of her 18-year-old "computer savvy" brother in California - figured out that her mom was monitoring her, she erased the IM log files, Betsy told us. So Betsy needed to find another product that would monitor Susan secretly, she said. As of this writing, she was about to try "IamBigBrother" (see Software4Parents.com) and "Online Recorder" by Power Programs Inc.. She said she'd let us know if she likes either of these products, and we'll pass that along to readers who are interested.

We asked Betsy about how many hours a day Susan IMs: "I'd say one to two hours. It's the first place she goes when she gets home and the last thing she does before she goes to bed. It's pretty much all she does online. She doesn't surf or chat in chat rooms. She just wants to have connections with people she's friends with. Another mother I know banned her daughter from IM a month or two ago because she found out a friend of hers was a drug user. She almost regretted banning it," Betsy told us, explaining that now that mother has no way of finding out what's going on in her daughter's life. "For some of these kids who are extroverts like my daughter," Betsy said, "the only way to protect them is to find out about their secret life with friends."

We welcome your thoughts on teens and instant-messaging. Do email us via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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A subscriber writes: A religious view of filtering

Subscriber Dave in Massachusetts offered a religious perspective on filtering in an email to us this week. He was commenting on our two-part series, "Filtering's other flaw" (3/1 and 3/8). Because Dave's comment is longer than space allows this week, we excerpt it below. Here's his full email.

"I feel the need to get my oar in the puddle on this discussion of the 'problem' of the conservative Christian Internet filters.

"As a life-long student of comparative religions and political thought I fear that there is a lot of sloppy thinking about this issue. The contention that it is somehow wrong to use a Christian-based Internet filter for a school overlooks that fact that the whole idea of protecting children from pornography (sexuality) and violence/hate-mongers is a uniquely Judeo/Christian religious principle...."

Please note: We appreciate receiving readers' views, stories, and lesson learned in all aspects of online safety. Email us anytime!

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Web News Briefs

1. Half a billion online at home

   It's still nowhere near Earth's population, but the newly released Internet-user numbers from Nielsen/NetRatings are still impressive. According to Reuters (via Yahoo News), worldwide, "some 498 million people could surf the Web from home by the end of 2001, a jump of 5.1 percent from the figure in July-September." The study found that people in Asia are "hooking up" faster than anywhere else (home Web access grew there 5.6% in the last three months of 2001, compared to 4.9% in Europe, 3.5% in the US, and 3.3% in Latin America). North America continues to have the largest share of the Internet population (40%). "Of the eight countries Nielsen/NetRatings monitors the company monitors in Asia, Singapore had the highest access rate at 60% of households, followed by South Korea (58%) and Hong Kong (56%); India ranked last at 7% of households. For comparison, a separate study reported that 45% of UK households are online, The Independent reports.

   Equally interesting figures on Japanese Net use were reported this week. As of the end of January, Japan has nearly 20 million dial-up Internet users, as well as 1.33 million cable and 1.79 million DSL Net subscribers and 49.44 million Internet-capable mobile-phone users. The number of broadband users in Japan is growing rapidly, while the dialup numbers are diminishing.

2. Net access gap narrowing, but...

   The term "digital divide" has been refined to mean the gap between students who have Internet access at home as *well* as school - in the US, at least. The Internet is now available at almost every US school and library, but the gap "will not be closed until everyone has private access and high-speed connectivity," eSchoolNews reports. The article zooms in on the experience of an eighth-grader in Brooklyn, N.Y. Until recently, he and his family were among the 12% of Internet users who can log on only from work, a library, a school, or elsewhere outside the home, a finding of a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life project. The eSchoolNews article is helpful in showing what it's like to be a Net user without home access.

3. 'Google-bombing'

   A story in the BBC this week explains why users of the popular Google search engine don't always get unbiased search results. Instead, they sometimes get Web pages that hackers, political activists, or just practical jokers want them to get - at or near the top of their results, anyway. These techies have "found a way to 'bomb' Google to improve the rankings of particular Web pages ... for particular search phrases," the BBC reports. For those who like to get to the bottom of things, tech-news site Corante.com explains how Google bombs work in this article, and then explains in another piece why Weblogs "bomb" and why they have so much influence on Google.

4. US universities resigned to file-swapping

   Students are "customers," some US colleges and universities say, in response to the question of whether they're blocking music and movie file-sharing so popular among students. "When Napster burst onto the Net about two years ago, some campus network administrators blocked the software to avoid lawsuits and conserve resources," CNET reports, adding: "Now the legal threats to universities have receded and many of the technical problems that once plagued networks are being solved, giving network administrators more options when setting peer-to-peer usage policies." The article says the new focus for school network administrators is to control the level of peer-to-peer online activity, rather than eliminate it entirely.

5. Pennsylvania ISPs & child porn

   According to BNA Internet Law, Pennsylvania has enacted a new anti-online child porn law that may require local ISPs to block access to such content or face criminal prosecution. House Bill 1333 requires ISPs to remove or disable access to child pornography within five days of notification by the state attorney general. It will be interesting to watch this development to see if it's precedent-setting in the United States. Here is the legislation (in pdf format).

6. SAT scores faster on the Web

   For a fee, of course. Students who want to see their SAT (standardized aptitude test) scores a week earlier than usual can pay $13 for that privilege, according to the Associated Press (via Wired News). The service is available to students who registered on the Internet to take the college-entrance exam.

7. Designs on future spenders

   College-age Internet users are a very attractive but very elusive group of customers, e-marketers find. The New York Times cites figures showing that these students have "$100 billion in discretionary cash at their disposal each year," but they spend only $1.4 billion of that online - barely a passing grade for Internet companies, the Times adds. The "problem" is they're a very diverse group of people, and 60% of them do not live in dormitories with high-speed Internet connections. For anyone interested in knowing how marketers are surmounting these challenges and targeting their university-age children, the article looks at all the angles.

8. 64,000+ tips and counting

   That's tips so far to the CyberTipline (also available by phone at 800-THE-LOST) of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. This week the Washington Post reported that the Tipline has received more than 64,000 tips about suspected child abuse since launch in 1998, 55,000 of them related to child pornography. But that's not the only subject of interest to Tipline analysts, who share access to the information that comes in with the FBI, US Customs, and the US Postal Inspection Service. Tipline analysts also work closely with police departments throughout the US. They're interested in information about:

   • Possession, manufacture, and distribution of child pornography
   • Online enticement of children for sexual acts
   • Child prostitution
   • Child-sex tourism
   • Child sexual molestation not in the family.
   
   
9. Netscape tracks you

   With Netscape Navigator 6, AOL Time Warner tracks the search terms users type in at Google and other search sites, as well as users' IP addresses, the date Navigator was installed, and a unique identification number. According to the Washington Post, "anytime a Navigator user performs a search by typing terms into the browser's URL bar and pressing the adjacent Search button, or by using the Search tab on the browser's My Sidebar feature, the user data is sent to a server at info.netscape.com using a uniform resource locator (URL) forwarding system. AOL Time Warner's Netscape department says it does this tracking only so it can bill participating search sites for the traffic the Netscape browser sends them.

10. Simple games

    For insights into the fun and struggles of a 28-year-old accountant-cum-game designer, don't miss "Milk the Cow, and Udder Fun Games" at Wired News. Ferry Halim's beautiful Web site (with its 26 games) gets "about a million visitors a month," Wired reports.

11. Wi-Fi, when? ('Now,' says Gen Y)

    Following up on our item last week about the "next Internet" of the wireless sort, Salon.com offers a reality check for Wi-Fi-using wannabees. "Despite the buzz over unplugged coffeehouses, free community networks, and war driving, jacking in to the wireless Net is still next to impossible," Salon says. "Even in cities like New York, Seattle and San Francisco where public wireless projects are prevalent, working access points are rare." Salon goes on to explain, quite thoroughly, why the delays aren't about technology as much as "the shifting flows of capital in the 21st century."

    Meanwhile, people in their teens and 20s aren't interested in waiting around. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for them wired is tired - they should be called the "wireless generation." "For people in that age group, a wireless phone is less about talk than about taking the digital lifestyle into the wireless world. As much as teens love telephone conversation, they seem just as interested in customizing their wireless phones with features such as instant messaging, email, Web surfing access, games, custom rings, brightly lit screens, and switchable phone covers," the Star Tribune reports. (Our thanks to Corante.com for pointing this piece out.)

12. Chat host held liable in Sweden

    Aftonbladet, a leading newspaper in Sweden, closed its online discussion boards after a Swedish court ruled that the publisher was responsible for death threats against Jews which were posted on the boards. UK-based The Register reports that the posts appeared in October 2000 but, "owing to some technical problems, they were not deleted from the forum (which is moderated) for some time.... The editors subsequently removed the posts but were charged with agitating against an ethnic group." The Register refers to an item on this at kuro5hin.org (an online tech community site a little like the early Slashdot.com), which clinches the significance of this story: "This ruling sets a precedent whereby the publisher of a Web site can be held responsible for what is published in an open forum, and it might even spell the end for unmoderated online discussion on Swedish Web sites." BNA Internet Law pointed this item out to us.

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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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