How to Protect Your Children Against Internet Pornography

Imagine for a minute that you have a child who is an elementary school student. Suppose that student has been assigned a report on the White House, and your child’s teacher wants research on the report done on the Internet. To do research your child innocently goes to the website www.whitehouse.com, thinking he will find an official government site with lots of information for his report. The actual official White House website, however, is www.whitehouse.gov, and at the other site your child will find a site that many consider pornographic, and he might find other undesirable sites targeted toward unsuspecting viewers.

You try to monitor what your child does on the computer, and you may have the type of child who would not deliberately go to a pornographic website. You have seen how a child, or even an adult, could go unintentionally to such a site, however. You know you cannot watch everything your child does. What can you do to protect him from pornography on the Internet?

First, you should know there are laws available to protect minors from pornography on the Internet, but the laws alone won’t solve the problem. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 were both designed to restrict pornography on the Internet, especially in the interest of children. Both laws attempted to enforce regulation when sites offered information that was “patently offensive,” indecent,” and “harmful to minors.” Some have argued, however, that the law is not specific enough, and it is hard to determine when a law has been broken.

There is another problem with the laws. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 prohibits websites from collecting personal information from children younger than 13, without parental consent. The problem is the law may be effective in protecting younger children from all types of harm, teenagers are more likely than younger children to divulge personal information. They are, therefore, at greater risk, and the law may not protect them as well. As a result, websites often target teenagers by running promotions and contests.

There are some important tools to help you in protecting your children from pornography on the Internet, however. Blocking and filtering technologies have been developed by software companies to help parents and teachers protect children from questionable material. Users can select what kinds of information can and cannot be received through their browsers. Such websites as www.cyberpatrol.com, www.cybersitter.com, and www.netnanny.com, offer the software.

The Cyberpatrol website offers its software to parents at home, schools, libraries, home offices, and small businesses. It claims its software protects from harmful sites, spyware, privacy predators, phishing, and protects while Internet users use instant messaging or chatting online. It claims to offer a safeguard against Internet threats. That might be a good way to protect children against Internet pornography.

A free trial is available for 14 days. The software can be purchased for $39.95. The company states it is a world leading Internet security company.

The Cybersitter software is also $39.95. The company also offers a free trial period, and one can download the software in a minute. With the software, one can monitor Internet activity on a home computer from home, work, on vacation, or anywhere access to the Internet is available.

The software is primarily for home, small business, or educational use. With the software you can monitor the sites your children visit and who they chat with online.

The Netnanny software is less than $3.50 per month. A free trial is available. The company claims its software will stop online porn, protect against Internet predators, provide safe surfing, and protect against computer viruses. Discounts are available for educational and non-profit institutions.

The software can be a good tool in protecting your children against Internet pornography, but there might be one problem. You are never in control of what can and cannot be viewed. You have limited your knowledge of what information is available to you. Sometimes the blocking technology actually blocks out sites which can be though of as educational. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy-rights group in Washington D.C., found that such technology actually blocks access to more than 90 percent of decent material on the Internet.

There is an alterative to filtering software that will also help protect your children against pornography on the Internet. There are websites that counsel parents on supervising their children on the Internet. One such site is www.getnetwise.com.

There are a lot of negative things on the Internet that might be harmful to children. There are, however, a lot of different ways to protect children from pornography and other harmful influences on the Internet.