Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Internet Child User 'Protection' Law Struck Down

Lowell Reed, a judge in Philadelphia has dismissed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The law was to punish people who allowed minors to access explicit material on the Internet.

Many people agreed with the judge’s decision saying that the best way to deal with child protection over the Web is by utilising filtering technology.

In January 2007, MySpace had launched a free tool called ‘Zephyr’ that aims to provide online safety for children. Many children have been falling prey to online criminals by divulging personal information about themselves on social networking sites.

The software aims to allow parents know what their children are doing while on MySpace.

This tool is said to alert parents of the username, age and location a child lists on personal MySpace pages. However, the tool is also designed to give the kids enough privacy on their MySpace profile. The service is free, but has a catch, as it won’t allow parents to view the child’s password-protected profiles or any communications they have with friends, the company said.