Protecting the Online Privacy of Children

Here is the abstract of an article on coordinating law and technology to protect the online privacy of children : 

At least two-thirds of children between the ages of 10
and 13 surf the Internet, MySpace has recorded more webpage views
than Ebay and Google combined, and the American Medical
Association has begun to advise parents about maintaining the
safety of their children online. The Internet brings rich content
to children and expands their horizons, but at the same time
creates dangers and risks to their privacy and well-being. In
2006, Xanga.com was fined $1 million by the Federal Trade
Commission for collecting information from children without
parental consent, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act (COPPA). The FTC has predicted since its COPPA
regulations in 2000 that technology would provide the answer to
protecting children online, yet no technology has emerged.
Clearly, Internet and communications technology have progressed
rapidly and significantly in over seven years, yet protection of
children's privacy seems to have been left behind. The authors
argue that it is possible, through the co-ordination of law and
technology, to facilitate a parent's protection of his or her
child in the online environment. The article briefly describes
POCKET (Parental Consent for Kids' Electronic Transactions), a
technology developed by the authors under a National Science
Foundation Cybertrust grant, to help protect children's privacy
online. The article concludes that the technology to protect
children that seemed so near when COPPA was initially adopted
should not be abandoned for less effective regulatory standards.

The article, titled "Pocket Protection," is by  France Belanger, Michael Hsiao, Jung-Min Park, all of Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1000427

Comments

[Tina Watson]

I have used a good resource for several years to protect my families privacy on the internet. Ultimate Anonymity ( http://www.ultimate-anonymity.com ) provides excellent tools and resource for online privacy and anonymity as well as easy to use file encryption and folder hiding software to keep the kids out of the business stuff on the PC. Hope this helps.

Tina Watson