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Dear Subscribers:

Here's our lineup for this final week of May (wow, already?!):

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Power to the people (in a commercial sort of way)

You might call this e-commerce theme week, so much is going on that makes shopping online a revolutionary experience. For a while Amazon.com was the model e-store, with its user-friendly technology and focus on customer service (and, as we reported last week, the Amazon juggernaut keeps rolling on, moving into new categories all the time).

Now there are some interesting new kids on the block - one for grownups, one for pre-grownups. But before we dig in more deeply, a little more on this e-commerce "revolution." It's about putting more and more focus on the customer, which is good news for us, of course. We liked Amazon's 30% discount in books that drove book prices down at Barnes and Noble, too. Now some of us are having fun not just cutting out the middle-man/retailer entirely at eBay; eBay users are even going to retail stores like Toys R Us, buying their limit on Star Wars stuff, and auctioning the goods off at eBay at a 100%-or-more markup, according to the New York Times. And - not to be outdone - Amazon and CNET have weighed in with auctions of their own.

Suddenly the Internet isn't just saving us money, it's offering us new ways to make money with e-commerce - to sell as well as buy. Never before was it feasible to sell one's Pokemon cards in a global flea market, or change careers to full-time online auction magnate.

Watch out, Amazon!

Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, is calling it "we-commerce." He has a new e-commerce venture, called Mercata, that gives customers the power to drive down the prices of the products they want to buy. Launched last week, Mercata has a feature called "PowerBuy," a limited-time offer of a specific consumer product whose price goes down as more people buy it, according to Reuters via Wired News. Even Amazon hasn't tried this idea yet. Mercata also offers regular volume discounts on products that can be purchased right away (for PowerBuy, customers have to wait a few days until the cut-off, when Mercata tallies up the number of customers participating in the group purchase). Products to be found at Mercata (in these early days of the venture) include consumer electronics, sporting goods, and kitchenware.

E-commerce for kids

Another new site this spring is iCanBuy, targeting kids and teenagers. Its mission, iCanBuy says, "is to enable kids, teens, and parents to manage money wisely." The site allows its young customers to shop (at a mall populated by its retail partners), have a savings account, give to charity, and start a "wishlist" that works like an online gift registry, where people to whom the child gives passwords can buy items on her wishlist for her.

Upon reading this, do warning bells go off in your head? Well, the most obvious concern - children giving out credit card numbers and other personal information online - is met. Having looked through page after page of this site, it's clear to us that this company has thought of just about everything. Privacy needn't be a concern. Parents and children both register separately. Only parents can give out credit card numbers. And purchases require parent approval (the parent's own password is entered when the child reaches the checkout stage), as do a child's spending levels. Parents have their own purchase-management screen for reviewing and approving purchases. They (and grandparents or anyone to whom the child gives a password) can also make "gift deposits" to the child's account with their credit card number.

If all this seems rather materialistic, iCanBuy has that base covered, too. They have a relationship with the Child Welfare League of America, picked by Parenting magazine as one of the "Top 10 most effective charities." So iCanBuy's young customers can give to charity. They can also start their own savings account (with Mom or Dad's help), with Security First Network Bank (federally insured, 2.57% interest). If that's not enough, users can engage in monitored chat about managing money, earning, shopping, and saving.

It's clear this company has really thought through privacy and security issues, as well as just about any other concern a parent might have. We can see that, for some families, it could be quite an effective teaching tool. For others - used to a good ol' allowance, hanging out at the mall, and occasional reality checks from Mom and Dad - it might seem a bit constraining, like being made to practice the piano.

If any of you are curious enough to try iCanBuy out with your children, let us know what you think! Our question for you: Is this just way too complicated a way to teach or learn financial responsibilities? Or if you just want to comment on this e-commerce concept for kids, please do - via feedback@netfamilynews.org.

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Other e-commerce news

We've been keeping you posted on free and low-low-cost PCs. Well, News.com this week had a report on their "hidden costs": below-par tech support and customer service. Then there's the backlog problem. People are ordering in droves, and companies like Gobi, DirectWeb, Enchilada, and Microworkz are having a tough time keeping up with demand. If any of you have ordered from one of these companies, tell us about your experience.

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A giant leap for genealogists?

Here's great news for anyone engaged in family history research, a very popular activity on the Internet: The Mormon Church just unveiled its online database of 400 million names at FamilySearch. According to Reuters via Wired News, the church plans to up that figure to 600 million names by year's end. When we went to the site this week, we got nowhere - just to a page saying the server's too busy. According to one genealogy specialist Reuters interviewed, the data is more international than anything available online so far, but it's still very US- and UK-centric. There are more Central and South American names available now, thanks to the Mormon database, but "records from Asia and Africa remain slim," Reuters reports.

If you enjoy family history research, tell us your favorite Web resources. Your fellow subscribers might appreciate tapping into you expertise! Just e-mail us.

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Web News Briefs

There's news about e-commerce fraud and a US Senate move against bomb-making info on the Internet from the AOP Bulletin this week. Also in the news: Australia looks set to take the lead in anti-'Net porn measures.

  1. Online credit card fraud toughest on e-stores

    We're all well aware of concerns people have about giving out their credit card numbers online. Well, a report from the Association of Online Professionals points out that the real victims are sellers, not consumers. "While consumers whose cards are misused are protected from the loss, merchants who are hit with a fraudulent card generally must take the loss," the AOP Bulletin reports. "And a single stolen card number is generally used multiple times to make fraudulent purchases - increasing the level of fraud against Internet sites that take credit cards." The Bulletin cited a Harris survey of consumers which found that some 6 million people - 7% of US people online - have been victims of online fraud.

  2. US Senate's message on bombmaking instructions

    Right before voting that passed the Juvenile Justice Bill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of CA amended the bill to include a measure that bans bombmaking instructions (if they encourage people to make and use bombs) from any medium, including the Internet. The bill is unlikely to go much further, the AOP says: "While this amendment and others provide senators with an opportunity to grandstand in the wake of recent school shootings, there is little belief that the measure will become law. Both this amendment and the Juvenile Justice Bill itself have been shot down before. And even if passed, the anti-bomb language would likely fail its first court test as a violation of the First Amendment."

  3. Anti-'Net porn in Australia

    Now here's a law that is likely to pass - Down Under. According to Wired News, Australia is close to joining the slightly less free-speech-oriented nations of China, Iran, and Burma (officially, Myanmar) in censoring adult-oriented material on the Internet. This past Wednesday Australia's Senate passed a bill that requires Internet service providers there to block or remove sites with adult content. The bill was expected to pass the House shortly. Some sites, including the US's own Electronic Frontier Foundation, have turned their sites black in protest. Tell us which way you feel the Australian House of Representatives should vote.

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Family policymaking and chat

From CyberAngels this week, an interview with Laura Kecherson, director of CyberAngels' Cybermoms division, a all-volunteer arm of CA. Laura teaches Cybermoms how to look after kids online (much like the Guardian Angels in New York City's subways) and how to teach fellow parents about keeping children safe on the Internet.

The biggest challenge for many parents with kids on the 'Net, Laura told us, is that their kids are going to a place where the parents have never been before!

The Internet's not much different from anything else: If our kids are out in front of us, we're going to want to learn just about everything we can on the subject, Laura said. "Just because kids know more than adults about something doesn't mean we can step back and let the kids be the parents." Laura runs into that "stepping back" sometimes in working with parents and children on Internet issues.

We asked her how parents can be more involved, and she gave us a useful analogy: "You wouldn't let a 16-year-old go off on a 50-mile car trip the first day she has her license. You'd go with her. It's the same online. They can gain their independence gradually. Maybe you go with them less and less but still know what they're doing and where they're going. If you're just as involved in a child's Internet activities as you are with all their other activities, then it'll be fine."

Online chat could be seen as just another social activity that parents might want to know some things about - such as, who their child is socializing with! We asked Laura, "If they are chatting a lot, and we can't follow their activities as closely as we'd like, are there danger signs to be alert to?" She said that people who prey on children work to isolate them from their families. So the first sign is if a child seems unnaturally distant or withdrawn. Other signs: phone calls where the person at the other end hangs up when grownups answer, or just way too much time on the computer. As with all things in life, balance is good!

Preventive measures parents can take might include solid ground rules, established up front before the child gets into online chat or - if s/he's already an active chatter - time out for a family meeting about acceptable-use policies. As usual, clearly stated rewards and consequences usually work better than the doling out of consequences after the fact.

Here are some sample rules parents can consider for family policymaking:

  1. Don't give any personal information - your real name, address, town, school, phone number, photo, password, or credit card number without asking for our permission. [Predators are very patient and keep records of information as it appears in a public chat space.]
  2. Don't ever arrange a real-life meeting without your parents knowing about it. If you can't see the person you're chatting with online, you don't really know who you're "talking" to.
  3. If someone says or does something that makes you feel uncomfortable, tell us [your parents] right away. Don't turn off the computer. Let us see what makes you uncomfortable, and let us handle the situation.
  4. Don't say anything that would incite anyone; if people get angry, log off. [The Golden Rule applies online just as effectively as in every other aspect of life; there's a real person with feelings behind the words in that chat room.] you're connected to.

It's a "House that Jack Built" sort of situation, we've learned. Rules that work for a family grow out of sound family policies, which build on basic good parenting. For more rules, see a sample family contract in our site, excerpted from a book by CyberAngels executive director Parry Aftab.

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

Sincerely,

Net Family News


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