Child Privacy Risks 
What are the chances?

The Internet becomes a scarier place when a child controls the mouse. X-rated material and adult chat rooms are easy to find. If you don’t think this is true, go to Yahoo.com and register yourself as a new user, 18 years old. Now, return to Yahoo’s home page and click your way to the adult chat room. You can enter without providing one shred of proof that you’re 18.

What’s more, pornography peddlers spam email accounts, including children’s, with blatant porn and links to adult web sites. It’s not uncommon for kids to find X-rated pictures in their email. 

In a random survey, the Center for Media Education found that 95 percent of children’s Web sites collect personal information. But only a tiny fraction—just 6 percent-ask children to get their parents' permission before responding. Only one in four children's Web sites post privacy policies.

A new law created in 1998, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), requires all Web sites to get a parent's consent before they can collect, use, or disclose personal information from children under 13-and to post clear policies about how that information is used. COPPA went into effect on April 21, 2000. However, the Federal Trade Commission is still hammering out the regulatory details.

To begin protecting your children, consider a child filter like ChildWebGuardian!

Personal Defense for Chat Rooms
and Message Boards  
Careful how much personal information you share

Chat rooms made available by America Online, Yahoo! and other portals are among the Web’s most popular features, but they create a whole set of privacy and security risks. When you chat, it isn’t just the other anonymous chatters in the room who may be gathering information on you.

Never post your email address in anonymous open chat rooms. It exposes your email identity to strangers, including spammers who use software ‘spiders’ to collect email addresses. They may fill your inbox with unwanted messages.   

• Teach your children that giving out personal information online, including their email address, is the same as talking to strangers on the street, or even worse.

• Do not give out personally identifiable information.

• Remember that chat room conversations and message board content are routinely logged and saved, either by the hosting Web site or sometimes by the individual chatters. So what you type may never disappear.

For more information on child privacy issues, go to:
Kidz Privacy (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy)

Also, consider a child filter like ChildWebGuardian!