St Aiden's - Surfnet Kids

Safe Email for Kids
by Barbara J. Feldman
Syndicated Columnist
Surfing the Net with Kids

WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Safe email for kids means different things to different parents. Here's a
checklist of features to help you choose a solution. Following the checklist, is
a list of vendors that offer email packages for kids.

[ ] Is only email from a white list of senders allowed to reach your child? For
very young kids, this is a GREAT solution. Parents get to specify which email
addresesses are allowed to send email to their children. For school-aged kids
however, I find the "white-list-only" solution to be cumbersome. My kids
receive email from many friends, teachers, school administrators, soccer
coaches, and team moms; I don't want have to personally approve each
sender.

[ ] Can you create a white list of email addresses that OVERRIDES all other
checks?
This white list is a different implementation from the first. It is a list of senders
that get through even if they violate one of the other rules. This is a good way
to receive newsletters (for example) that may trip a spam filter for using
phrases like "unsubscribe here" or "free."

[ ] Is there a black list of email addresses that are not allowed to send mail to
child?
A useful feature, but if this is the only tool provided to block spam senders,
you'll quickly tire of adding each new spam address to the black list.

[ ] Does refused mail get sent to parent's email address?
I never like products that delete mail without allowing a human being to
review them. I am too leery of false positives to allow a machine to decide
whether mail is important or not.

[ ] Does product include virus scanning?
A lot of junk mail is actually generated by viruses. If virus protection is not
included in the email package, be sure to buy it separately. I like NORTON
ANTI_VIRUS

[ ] Does product include spam control?
Spam control is very important because not only will this filter unsolicited
business offers, it will also catch all those offensive offers to enlarge various
body parts.

[ ] Does the spam check allow you to fix false positives?
Be very wary of spam filters that throw the good mail out with the bad. Spam
control needs to be configurable, and there must be a way to designate
certain senders or certain subject lines as acceptable by placing them on a
white list. Avoid spam control technologies that use only one criteria for
determining spam (such as all instances of the word "free.") Better spam
control will use a point system, so that some violations (mention of a certain
male prescription drug, for example) are assigned more points than others.

[ ] Does the product have profanity checks for both incoming and outgoing
mail?
This is a nice feature, but I would never accept a product that ONLY provided
this feature (as some do.)

[ ] Are ALL the parental control features password protected?
This may seem obvious, but I've actually seen products that send the "bad
mail" to a folder that is available for the children to read.

This article addresses the concerns of parents searching for a safe email
solution for their children. While it won't be updated on a regular schedule, it
will be updated to reflect new products as they are released. This valuable
and informative article is sure to be appreciated by parents visiting your site.

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South Africa : Rainbow Nation