Child Internet Safety Software: Internet Monitoring and Filtering Software for Children

As many safety tips you hear about or read about, there are twice as many that you may not hear about. That is where monitoring and filtering software has a tremendous value.

Here are some known risks to grade school and high school children:

Invasion of Privacy

Children have the right not to give out private information to anyone, including reputable companies, for any reason without the expressed permission of their parents. This information includes, but is not limited to name, email, address, age, and school they attend. TypeAgent is a child monitoring software that records all keystrokes your child types. This provides protection from sexual predators by being making you aware.

Exposure to Inappropriate Material

The Internet is a vast information resource... of all types of information. Sites that contain explicit sexual, violent, and hateful information can be found with little and sometimes no effort. There are also sites on how to build bombs, make designer drugs, etc.
Net Intelligence offers a Free 14 Day Trial and has a slew of features and controls that you can configure.

Being Harassed

Chat rooms and message boards are full of people who are just plain nasty. This can hurt a teenagers self esteem, ruin reputations and more.

Phishing

Phishing is the act of illegally obtaining personal information such as credit card numbers, passwords and bank account information. This con is a relatively new but growing threat to Internet users, and one to which children can be particularly vulnerable. Phishing scams are increasing at an exponential rate. WebWatcher does a good job in this category.

Disturbing Statistics

Pornography has become a $57 billion industry worldwide.
It produces more revenue in the United States than the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball franchises or the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It robs the workplace of the time and talents of employees. 20% of men admit accessing pornography at work. 13% of women do so.
One in five children ages 10-17 has received a sexual solicitation over the Internet.

The Dangers of MySpace

Your child can easily post enough information about themselves to be abducted. An online predator looking at your child's page has enough information to arrive at your door or the playground that your child frequents. You must teach your child the dangers of posting too much information and you must follow up to make sure they aren't posting too much information.
Block MySpace. Keep your children safe. - SafeKeeper blocks Internet Porn Sites and is Easy-To-Use. They are currently offering a 14 Day Free Trial.

Another problem is that children tend to post things that should never be put in print. They say things like they want to burn down the school or they want to kill so-and-so with not literally meaning it but threats like that could be taken seriously.
MySpace is for kids over 14 years of age. There is sexually explicit information on the site posted by other users and the profile questions that users create is geared towards adults.
Harassment, hate speech and inappropriate content should be reported. If you feel someone's behavior is inappropriate, step in and report it to MySpace or the authorities.

Webcams And Your Kids

Your child may be wanting a Webcam for their computer or maybe they already own one. Their friends may already own a Webcam so the pressure is on for your child to have one too. They can be a lot of fun to share instant video from computer to computer. They also can be very dangerous and they can lead to dangerous behavior. Think twice before buying that new webcam for Christmas or a birthday!

With GuardianMonitor, you can generate a time-lapse video recording of the computer screen, then do a quick visual scan for inappropriate activity. If your child has a webcam - this is invaluable.

A word about Online Safety:

Kids Usually Outsmart Their Parents. Many parents can�t even program their VCR without the help of their kids. Monitoring kids� online activities can be difficult and frustrating. Even computer-savvy parents who spend hours trying to trace their children's activities come up short. Web Watcher provides a PROVEN hi-tech safety solution for people who aren�t hi-tech. If you can send an e-mail, you can use Web Watcher. Web Watcher is a subscription program which offers the added benefit of being constantly up to date.
Web Watcher is a great alternative if you do not want to block certain sites.

Webwatcher, featured on CNN and in NEWSWEEK is an affordable monitoring software. Some of the benefits include: Monitoring children's key strokes real-time from anywhere, blocking any webpage based on content or web address, reading instant message (IM or Chat) Conversations, reading incoming and outgoing Email, monitoring anything on or offline. CLICK HERE to find out more.

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Monitor Your Kids on the Internet / Child Internet Safety