Micheal Dermody is both an educator and a dad of two boys, 11 and 13. He’s also an IT consultant
His blog, Keeping Kids Safe Online, recently featured Safe Eyes Mobile after both his boys received iPod Touches for Christmas. A lot of parents don’t realize that iPod Touches have WiFi connections and can connect to the Internet.
Here are his comments:
Installing it was easy. There were a few screens of setup I had to do on each iPod and it required me to create a master administrative account so that I alone could change settings.
During setup I chose the types of site content I wanted filtered out (like adult, violence, hate, etc.). Naturally I checked most of the options only to find that it filtered EVERY site out, including most news sites and even National Geographic Kids. Lesson learned – you can’t go crazy with blocking things out or it will block everything. The nice thing about the app is that I can change settings as we go along. When a site is blocked that shouldn’t be, I can add it to the “allow” list. If a bad site slips through the filters I can add it to the “block” list.
The app will obviously have to evolve as my kids use it which means, like any filtering/monitoring software, it will require my time to maintain and adjust it. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it, when it comes to keeping your kids safe online, there is no magic application that you set once and walk away from. If you want the software to do its job you have to put some time in.
Micheal makes a great point here: while we’ve done everything we can to make installation as easy as possible, filters do need a bit of customization to make them work just right for the person they are intended to protect. It’s also true that no filter can work optimally without steady parental involvement, which is why we say that parents are not included with our products.
The publicity surrounding Tiger Woods’ reported treatment for sex addiction should raise public awareness of the problem’s causes, including the fact that pornography is now just a click away on the Internet, according to anti-porn crusader and XXXchurch founder Craig Gross.
“We don’t know if Tiger Woods struggled with online pornography, but most sex addicts do. It’s often where their habit starts,” said Gross, whose web-based XXXchurch ministry has helped hundreds of thousands of people combat pornography addiction. “You no longer have to surreptitiously buy a porn magazine from a newsstand or go through the embarrassment of renting a porn movie. There are 420 million pages of pornographic material online, and that is fueling the sex addiction problem.”
The National Council on Sex Addiction estimates that 25 million Americans visit cyber-sex sites from one to 10 hours a week, with 18 to 24 million people in the U.S. qualifying as sex addicts. The Internet Filter Review estimates that 25% of all search engine requests are pornography-related, nearly 43% of all Internet users view porn, and there are 1.5 billion peer-to-peer pornography downloads per month.
Gross recommends using an Internet filtering program like InternetSafety.com’s Safe Eyes to protect users from the lure of online sexual content. Safe Eyes allows ‘accountability partners’ such as a spouse, friend, pastor or mentor assigned by an anti-porn advocacy group to block Internet access altogether at specific times such as the highly vulnerable after-midnight hours, check online usage logs for attempts to access sites with sexual content, and receive alerts by phone or email when users attempt to bypass the filter.
Accountability partners can be given administrative control of Safe Eyes so that they can adjust settings and access usage logs from their own computers. Users can be prevented from removing the software from their computers by asking InternetSafety.com to scramble their passwords or by configuring the product to split passwords with accountability partners.
“Any addict needs tools to fight his or her addiction. The use of Safe Eyes to help pornography addicts break the habit has been growing steadily since we introduced the product in 2003,” said InternetSafety.com CEO Forrest Collier. “Intervening in this way can help people avoid the spiraling effects of sexual addiction.”
The most recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation on teen media use presents an interesting portrait of the younger generation.
While the report shows what many of us would expect, that teen screen time is rapidly expanding and that emerging mobile technologies are keeping kids aged eight to 18 glued to rich media more than ever, it also presents a kernel of hope that this might not validate the ensuing conclusion that teen minds are being pounded into mush.
The report does show that kids in this age range are spending more time in front of screens, be they for phones, TVs, or computers, averaging just over seven and a half hours a day. This is well over the suggested limit of 2 hours per day provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Time spent in front of the computer has increased from just over a half-hour in 1999 and just over an hour in 2004 to one-and-a-half hours today.
However, while the study also shows a corresponding decline in the consumption of print materials like newspapers and magazines, the study shows an increase in the time spent reading books over the past ten years. The increase is not overwhelming, going from 21 minutes per day in 1999 to 25 minutes per day in 2009, but one has to take these bits of good news where we can.
If you need help limiting your kid’s time on the computer or iPhone, we can help you there, but for the TV and everything else, you’ll have to rely on just good ole fashioned parenting.
More and more faith-based communities are joining the fight against online pornography, and we are proud to be recommended by the Hilo Church of God as a weapon in that fight:
It is no secret that the rage of online pornography has gripped our society with a death grip. It is destroying marriages, future marriages, and the innocence of our young people. Over the last several months I have been promoting an internet filtering software called SafeEyes. It’s not too late to get your family on the right track. Let’s take this issue seriously. It is affecting our families, our church, and our community.
Safe Eyes is also recommended by many Christian organizations such as Focus on the Family, the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, XXXChurch.com, Pure Life Ministries and Setting Captives Free.
We focus a lot on how Safe Eyes can help parents protect their kids, but it’s worth noting that there is a rising tide in America of adults who wish to protect themselves from the harmful effects of pornography, and we’re proud that our software is so widely recommended as a great technological tool to help people do just that.
Digital Shepherds is a non-profit organization whose focus is instructing and educating parents, at PTA meetings, in churches, townhalls, corporate boardrooms and through webinar/distance learning and direct dvd sales, on how to “techno-proof” their homes.
Tshaka Armstrong, the driving force behind Digital Shepherds, stopped by our booth at the Consumer Electronics Show, and after learning about Safe Eyes 6 decided to make it one of his top picks from the event.
Read the whole article and check out the video interviews at digitalshepherds.com.
The Internet has become a fully integrated component of our daily lives. Our kids primarily use the net for education, personal entertainment, and networking with friends. The Internet is allowing them access to information with greater efficiency and autonomy than at any other time in history. Yet along with the many wonderful practical uses, there are dangerous misuses. Most parents are aware of the potential dangers online associated with predators and bullies, but we also need to pay attention to what our children are viewing online. Exposure to inappropriate material (in particular sexually explicit material) can have adverse developmental consequences. So let’s consider what more we can do to help safeguard our kids online.
Install internet filter and accountability software:
While Internet Filter Software companies are quick to acknowledge that technology is no surrogate for proper parenting, we certainly want to employ every good resource available to safeguard our kids online. In the same way that responsible driving is the key to avoid collisions, seatbelts are employed as necessary protection in case of accidents. Is your child or family’s computer buckled in?
Educate kids on what is and what isn’t appropriate to post online:
Kids often have a different understanding of privacy to what their parents do. For parents, privacy is about social/public boundaries and protection of personal information and images. However, for children, privacy is often defined as what we do online without mum and dad’s knowledge. In the same way we as parents want to know where our children are at all times in public, do you know where your kids hang out online, who they are with, and what information/images they are sharing?
Up skill yourself online:
To help parents in becoming more savvy, a great online parent resource center has been established in different countries: Visit http://www.thinkuknow.com/parents/ to find out ‘everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask!’ This educational resource helps parents gain insight into predators who groom children, the use of Internet enabled mobile phones, issues associated with online games, as well as social networking and chat sites/rooms.
On the second Friday of every month, the InternetSafety.com Blog will be posting guest video posts from Dr. Robi Sonderegger, clinical psychologist and founding director of Family Challenge Australia, and consultant and policy adviser on the rehabilitation of trauma associated with war, sexual exploitation (human trafficking) and natural disaster worldwide.
PC Magazine, which has twice declared Safe Eyes their Editor’s Choice for parental control software, is offering a preview of Safe Eyes 6:
With version 6.0, the company has changed its emphasis, calling the program a “family Internet manager” rather using the phrase “parental control”.
Safe Eyes now includes ratings-based filtering of video content on Hulu, iTunes and major TV networks including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox. Parents can limit viewing to G and TV-G, PG and T-PG, PG-13 and TV-14, or R and TV-MA.
Safe Eyes can also filter objectionable YouTube videos based on community response and on metadata such as keywords and description. In a similar fashion Safe Eyes can block download of songs with explicit lyrics from iTunes.
Version 6 enhances protection against offensive search results, enforcing “safe search” in Google, Yahoo, Bing and YouTube. Activity reports for parents, automatically generated on a daily or weekly basis, are now much more informative. The basic report summarizes surfing and searching activity with an option to drill down for as much detail as desired. For example, parents can see a list of videos viewed with a thumbnail and description for each.
Look out for full reviews of Safe Eyes 6 coming soon.
25 million American households watch online TV and movies every week, and that number is growing. With tech growing increasingly mobile (and all indications at CES 2010 are that it is) TV and movie viewing through the Internet is going to grow as a concern for parents right along with it.
Safe Eyes 6 Family Internet Manager, which will be available for download later this month, gives parents the ability to filter according to standard FCC ratings like TV-MA and R.
This is important because the advent of online TV and movies has created a loophole in terms of filtering out objectionable content for kids. While it remains as important as ever to be vigilant about content created specifically for the web such as your standard video on YouTube, shows like Nip/Tuck, CSI, and Sons of Anarchy are bringing increasingly graphic sexual and violent content to the web. And of course there is no “late night” when it comes to the Internet: these shows are available for viewing on their network sites and sites like Hulu.com.
Safe Eyes 6 gives parents the ability to close this loophole by choosing what ratings are appropriate for their child. This feature works on Hulu.com, iTunes, and all major network sites like NBC.com. Safe Eyes 6 is currently the only product of its kind with this ability, representing another industry first. For more on Safe Eyes 6 and its features, check out our preview page.
Today at CES we announced Safe Eyes 6, which will be available for purchase later in the month. Safe Eyes 6 Family Internet Manager is a big leap forward in both protection and focus, shifting from “control” to managing online activities.
Safe Eyes 6 includes several new features which will enhance the protection Safe Eyes offers as well as keep parents better informed. Some of the new features include:
The ability to filter online TV shows and movies according to standard FCC ratings like “R” and “TV-MA”; works on Hulu.com and all major network sites
Smarter and more meaningful activity reports
Activity summaries sent through email
The ability to enable safe-search across all browsers and search engines
The ability to prevent explicit downloads through iTunes
Shane Kenny, President, COO, and Founder of InternetSafety.com, gives his thoughts on what it takes to present your company at a mammoth trade show like the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
On Preparing for the Show
Planning gets into full swing for CES in mid-October and everything has to be done and on its way to Las Vegas before Christmas. This means that you are creating booth designs and marketing materials for a product that does not fully exist yet or is evolving as you send stuff to print. The hardest part of getting ready for event like CES is getting everyone within the organization on the same page in regard to the goals of the event and the messaging.
On the Company’s Involvement in CES Over the Years
This will be our fourth year attending CES. We have been fortunate to have great product announcements each year making it pretty exciting to get there and pull the lid off of the things we have been working on.
How Does a Company Stand Out from the Crowd at CES?
Standing out at any show is hard, but with CES it’s further complicated by multiple venues, tens of thousands of exhibitors, and just Las Vegas in general. Last year we had a prime booth location right inside the doors of one of the exhibit halls. This helped with traffic along with our launch of Safe Eyes Mobile, giving us some eye catching messaging around the iPhone. This year we have some exciting new announcements that will revolutionize our industry. I am more excited than I have ever been to go to an event like this and I think CES will launch the new year at InternetSafety.com in a big way.
To get an idea of what it takes to assemble and deliver the key marketing piece for any CES exhibitor, here are some photos of our booth being assembled at our Acworth office.
Micheal Dermody is both an educator and a dad of two boys, 11 and 13. He’s also an IT consultant
The publicity surrounding Tiger Woods’ reported treatment for sex addiction should raise public awareness of the problem’s causes, including the fact that pornography is now just a click away on the Internet, according to anti-porn crusader and 
The most recent study from the Kaiser Family Foundation on teen media use presents an interesting portrait of the younger generation.
25 million American households watch online TV and movies every week, and that number is growing. With tech growing increasingly mobile (and all indications at CES 2010 are that it is) TV and movie viewing through the Internet is going to grow as a concern for parents right along with it.
