Parent monitoring helps reduce child online danger

SALT LAKE CITY –– When Melissa Belanger saw an ad on Facebook for a free yearlong subscription to Net Nanny, she jumped at the opportunity to use it.

Belanger, of St-Antoine-sur-Richelieu in Quebec, Canada, has three children. Her 18-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter have been on Facebook since they were about 13, and her 8-year-old son is just beginning to chat online with his friends.

She let her subscription to Net Nanny, Internet filtering software, end a couple of years ago after using it for one year, and she is glad she spotted the ad for it.

"I was able to find out that my perfect little angel wasn't perfect," Belanger said. "She was planning things behind my back…something that could have ended up quite dangerous."

Cyberbullying and cyber predators have been prevalent dangers for web-users since the onset of the Internet in the '90s, but as social networking grows ever more popular among all generations, it's the younger generations that have many people worried.

Consumer Reports' recent State of the Net survey found that 7.5 million of the estimated 750 million people on Facebook are younger than 13, and more than 5 million of those are 10 and under.

One of the biggest threats for these young children is their innocence because they don't know the potential dangers and risks they might face online, said Russ Warner, CEO of Net Nanny.

"There are lots of cases of kids finding friends online and becoming friends with people who they don't know," he said. "It's just a matter of educating and talking to kids."

The Net Nanny filtering software and other monitoring software like PC Pandora, which works like TiVo for a personal computer, is a way for parents to monitor their children's online activity without having to sit and watch over their shoulder.

It frustrates Ken Shallcross, director of media and public relations for Pandora Corporation, to no end that every parent in the U.S. doesn't use monitoring software when it is such a great solution to cyberbullying, predators and keeping kids safe online.

"For some reason, when it comes to using software to monitor child Internet activity, many parents are apprehensive," he said. "They feel they are invading the privacy of their children and that the simple filters and blocks are good enough to keep their kids safe."