Safe Internet Alliance

[This is the sixth in a series of posts featuring key points and issues discussed at Safe Internet Alliance’s event on Capitol Hill on October 20th, “Framework For A Safe Internet: Know the facts, understand the issues, shape the future.”]

Speaking on Panel 2 , titled, "Confronting Internet Risks Today," McGruff Safeguard Chief Executive Officer Marty Schultz described a software program that McGruff offers to parents for free to monitor their children's Internet behavior.

"Every day we hear stories about kids doing inappropriate stuff on the Internet," Shultz said. "The question is how can we solve this problem? You have to understand what the problem is. The problem is not the Internet; the Internet is a technology, and you can't stop a technology. It's not the problem of social networks; social networks are just a way of communicating with each other. You can't simply shut down a social network, and you can't ask those who run it to monitor every conversation. The problem is parental ignorance, apathy, and the fear of the unknown. Parents must protect their kids in the online world the same way that we protect them in the offline world."

Shultz told the anecdote of the mother who constantly looks outside her kitchen window to see who her child is playing with and how they're interacting. This analogy, he argued, transfers to the online world as well.

"What we do is give parents the ability to monitor their kids online," he explained. "It's an intelligent virtual parenting service. It's free, we makes sure it comes from a brand people know and trust, and it alerts parents to potential danger."

To use it, parents come to the website, sign up for a free account, install it it on the child's PC, and whenever a kid is getting into trouble that he shouldn't be in, it sends a text message or an email to the parent alerting him. When parents sign up, they mark off what kind of activities they're worried about, and McGruff analyzes everything and notifies parents when a problem area is encountered.

For instance, if a parent tells the software that he's worried about drugs and alcohol, if the child is later chatting with a friend and uses a slang term for some kind of drug paraphernalia, the program will not only alert the parent, but also define the drug slang terminology and provide links for where the family can get intervention help.

Shultz said the biggest problem he encounters with parents is apathy; it's not uncommon for him to go to a presentation and only have four or five people show up.

"Parents don't realize that their kids are living online, for four or five hours a day," he said. "Some just say put [the PC] in the family room, and just walk back and forth and see what your kids are doing."

Privo Chief Executive Officer Denise Tayloe explained that the "bread and butter" of her company has been consulting and certification. A company will come in, and Privo will help it understand its obligations under COPPA [http://www.ftc.gov/coppa/] , get it in compliance, certify it, and then that certification acts as a safe harbor under the FTC ."

But Tayloe stressed that COPPA does not automatically equal safety, but rather it's "a piece of the equation." In many instances, one website will merely copy off another with its privacy policy, leading to a blind-leading-the-blind scenario. Tayloe said that there's also industry pushback against parental consent, since it's a difficult thing to process adequately. In many instances, the site simply sends an email to the parent asking for compliance, while others will use credit card verification to actually prove that the parent is giving permission.

"I want to commend Yahoo for allowing kids to tell the truth," she said. "You can actually tell the truth and say you're 10 years old, and they'll actually process the request and provide parental consent. At least they're letting kids tell the truth; if your kids have Gmail accounts and they're 12 and under, then we're all losing aren't we?"