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Wed
Jan 21, '09
0
The Child Online Protection Act is Dead
Today, the Supreme Court said it won't consider reviving the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which lower federal courts struck down as unconstitutional in 2007 and 2008.COPA is a law in the U.S., passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting minors from harmful sexual material on the Internet. COPA was enacted after the Supreme Court struck down a much broader law, the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The federal courts have since ruled that COPA is in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution, and therefore have blocked it from taking effect.COPA is not to be confused with Children's Online Privacy Protection Act(COPPA), which is a law that applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under U.S. jurisdiction from children under 13 years of age. It details when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13.The judges who have presided over the appeals, conclude that existing elective filtering technologies and parental controls are less restrictive to free speech than the 'ineffective' and 'overly broad' ban. I couldn’t agree more. If such a law was passed how would it be enforced? Who would enforce it? Who would determine what is ‘decent’ and what content is appropriate for what age?The answer is quite simple. Parents, care-givers, guardians, and teachers are the frontline when it comes to protecting kids online. They need the ‘three-legged stool’ of education, legislation and technology to assist them. Education about the safety issues, solid legislation that is forward thinking and effective, and powerful technology solutions that include filtering, blocking and monitoring of a child’s online activities.While it is important that we protect free speech in the U.S., it is equally important to take responsibility and protect children from harmful and inappropriate content as well. Net Nanny does both.
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Thu
Jan 15, '09
0
Taking the Task Force to Task
Yesterday, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force(ISTTF)publicly released its report of findings and recommendations for improving online child safety, in particular on social networking sites. I suggest that you head over and read the report yourself.
Kudos goes out to John Palfrey, Faculty Co-Director of The Berkman Center for Internet&Society at Harvard University and the members of the task force for attempting to tackle such a complex and important issue.
I had the opportunity to attend and present to the ISTTF in September 2008, and as I suspected then, the results of the task force do little to nothing to advance the issue of verification and identification of minors online.
The ISTFF concluded in its report, "Enhancing Child Safety&Online Technologies," that online bullying is the top threat to kids on the Internet and not all kids are at equal risk online. It's not the Internet itself, but the child's environment that's a real indicator of their risk, the report says: "Those who are most at risk often engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other parts of their lives. The psychosocial makeup of and family dynamics surrounding particular minors are better predictors of risk than the use of specific media or technologies.
Another conclusion that is obvious to many of us in the parental controls and Internet filtering industry is that today’s parental empowerment technologies combined with involved and responsible parenting, communication and education is by far the best method for protecting children online today. We understand that parental control software is simply a tool to assist parents in the layered approach to protecting their kids.
The task force could have saved it's valuable time and resources if they had simply read Adam Thierer's book "Parental Controls and Online Child Protection. It is, bar none, the most comprehensive look at today’s technologies and best practices in protecting kids online. It also comes to the same conclusion as the task force.
We need to take the “three-legged stool approach to attacking the issue of online safety and behavior, the legs being education, legislation and technology. Education is the most important. It needs to begin in the home and then we must require our government to take action in school classrooms and build awareness through traditional media. We need solid legislation that is enforceable and is not designed as a “feel good solutions. Lastly, we need to continue to invest in technologies like Net Nanny that continue to focus and keep up with the ever-changing dangers to kids on the Web, be it inappropriate contacts, conduct or content.
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Thu
Jan 15, '09
3
Feature of the Day: Secure Internet Filtering
I’d like to use this time to discuss and educate parents about some of the latest and greatest features found with Net Nanny. In this last release, Net Nanny 6.0 introduced several ground-breaking features, unfortunately many parents have a hard time grasping the importance and relevance of some of these features. One of the main features introduced in this release was “Secure Internet Filtering.
“What does that even mean? Great question! Let’s break it apart. “Secure Internet or “Encrypted Internet describes all of the websites you would normally visit, except the encrypted versions of them. For example, http://www.netnanny.com is a URL or website that you would regularly visit. If we changed http:// to https:// you would now be visiting the secure version of the website. All this really means is, any information you put on this website cannot be viewed by anyone that may be “tapping your internet line. This is important for credit card transactions, usernames and passwords, and all that information you don’t want others to know about. Unfortunately tech-savvy kids are using this very technique to get around parental controls and internet filtering. "https://some-adult-website-that-your-kids-shouldn’t-be-looking-at.com".
Now the “Internet Filtering part of the puzzle. This is the beauty of this new feature. Net Nanny will be able to correctly filter the websites that use https:// whilst maintaining the security of your private information. Although this ability has been around in the corporate and business environments for a while, no other family-friendly parental control product can do this. We’ve simply taken the corporate appliance technology and brought it into your home. Nice!!
Now you might be saying, “I need another example, where else have I seen something like this? Remember all of those espionage movies where the President says, “Is this line secure?, and he picks up the phone and talks to General Schwarzenegger about the “launch codes. It’s a lot like that, but Net Nanny is like the Presidential aid in the background that screens the call and makes sure it’s secure before the President takes it. Net Nanny will ensure your personal information is still secure, but prevent access to unwanted “calls or in our case objectionable websites.
I hope this helps you understand a little more about Secure Internet Filtering. In upcoming posts I’ll tackle ESRB games, cyber-predators and cyber-bullying. Stay tuned.
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