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June is National Internet Safety Month

By: Roberto Bell

While MySpace Turns Over Thousands Of Known Convicted Sex Offender User Profiles To Authorities, And Legislation Brews At National And State Levels, pcpandora.com Reminds Parents That They Are Ultimately The First And Last Line Of Defense Against Online Predators

A national poll released this week from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital found that adults ranked Internet safety as the No. 7 most important teen health topic. The poll asked adults to rank 17 health problems for children; other top ranking concerns were smoking, drug abuse and obesity.

It seems that Internet safety is all over the news lately. 2007 has been a hot year for the issue, from the blocking of COPA, to Ms. America's stint with America's Most Wanted, to the most recent MySpace situation. And thankfully it seems that the message is finally sinking in. Every day the news reports more predators busted by local and national law enforcement. Town and County meetings are popping up weekly across the country, helping to spread the education to parents. And more parents than ever are talking to their kids about safety and using parental control software.

To strike while the proverbial iron is hot, Congress has declared June as National Internet Safety Month (S. Res 205) for the third year in a row. Perfect timing!

Why?

Because when kids are out of school, they are online. So, obviously, summer is going to see a spike in child Internet usage, much of which will be unsupervised. We're also sure to see a spike in persistence of online predators.

It's with this in mind that the folks at pcpandora.com are spreading three keys to Safe Summer Surfing: Educate. Discuss. Protect.

Now more-so-than-ever, parents are the first and last line of defense against sexual predators that may be targeting their kids online. Parents need to educate themselves on all things Internet. Take the time to educate yourself on everything from popular web lingo, to the friends on your child's buddy lists to the sites they frequent. You should recognize and have a familiar sense of everything your child does online. And if you have a question ? ask.

To help, pcpandora.com contains 18 Tips for Safe Surfing and a blog, both which offer solutions, resources and discussions for parents.

For point #2, Discuss, well? Talking to your kids is the best thing you can do. If you are well-educated on the net and can bring the discussion to the child's level ? which in most cases is up a notch from the parents' level ? it will go a long way. Most experts agree that keeping the lines of communication open is essential for safety, but it also helps build trust.

And, finally, while many stories use scare tactics to tell parents to protect their kids from dangers online ? they are not telling them HOW! Pcpandora.com's third point, protect, offers a concrete solution on how parents can do so, effectively: through their monitoring software, PC Pandora.

The program works like a TiVo for your PC and creates a visual recording of your machine's usage via screen capture. You can see everything your child saw. It records logins, screen names, passwords, email addresses and everything in between. In addition, it has all the features that other programs utilize, such as site filtering and blocking, time scheduling, and it will even email the busy parent at work with updates on their child's Internet activity.

If you use this program, no child predator will get close to your kid! It's really the best all-around defense you can get.

As a special promotion for National Internet Safety Month, the company is offering the software at a discounted price. Parents can use the code 'safety2007' at checkout to get $15 off PC Pandora Standard OR PC Pandora Pro! Pretty sweet!

The company hopes to keep online safety at the forefront of parents' minds throughout the summer. June is just the start.

Some Alarming Stats Concerning Kids' Online Activity:
- According to 2006's Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later report, approximately one in seven youth online (10 to 17-years-old) received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet.
- The same report found that 34% had an unwanted exposure to sexual material ? pictures of naked people or people having sex. 27% of the youth who encountered unwanted sexual material told a parent or guardian. But if the encounter was defined as distressing ? episodes that made them feel very or extremely upset or afraid ? 42% told a parent or guardian.
- 71% of all parents stop monitoring their child's use of the Internet after the child turns 14, not knowing that 72% of all Internet-related missing children are 15 years of age or older. ? Dist. Attny, Cnty of Los Angeles

Article Source: http://www.articlemanual.com

About PC Pandora: Pandora Corporation was formed with one goal to help our customers monitor, control and protect their families and themselves online. PC Pandora has received accolades from users, reviewers and even school districts and law enforcement agencies.

More information can be found online at pcpandora.com/ For More Information, Contact: Ken Shallcross: 401.965.2035 or kshallcross@pcpandora.com



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