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.

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Safe Eyes 6 is now available for purchase and download on InternetSafety.com.

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

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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.

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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.

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Rick Klau is a dad blogger who recently came to the conclusion that OS parental controls were simply not enough.

Since he put it so well, I recommend visiting his blog and reading his entire post, but there is a choice bit I wanted to single out:

Before this sounds like I’m trying to delegate responsibility for managing my kids’ online experience: I’m not. I actually want them to explore, and learn to use the machines beyond pointing and clicking on things. But Robin and I aren’t always looking over their shoulders – whether we’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner, or putting their sister to bed, or, yes, hanging out by ourselves – there are times when they’re on their computer by themselves and I want them to be safe.

We really couldn’t have said it any better. Rick is speaking about one of the most common misconceptions associated with Internet filtering: that using technology equates to lazy parenting, and that it is equal to placing a blindfold and gag on your kid. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Rick eloquently illustrates, having a filter can give parents the peace of mind needed to NOT constantly hover over their children and worry about every cyber step they take.

I’d love to hear from some of our readers about what they think about this issue.

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KENS5 in San Antonio talks to Stephen Conroy about Safe Eyes Mobile and Cell Phone Safety. Reposted with permission from KENS5 San Antonio.

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Video resposted with Permission from MyFox Houston.

For those who don’t have Safe Eyes Mobile, just click here to get it in the iTunes store.

Also, there are three things that everyone needs to do to make sure Safe Eyes Mobile protects their iPhone/iPod Touch.

1. Under general settings, restrict Safari. If you don’t do this then any Internet content can be accessed through Safari
2. Also under settings, restrict the App Store to prevent the user from downloading unfiltered browsers through the app store
3. For the most complete protection, parents might also consider restricting youtube and iTunes

Big thanks to Stephen Conroy for talking about our app!

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CBS2 Tech Expert Ed Curran makes a very good, salient point to parents: iPhones and iPod Touches, which are doubtless going to be hot items this Holiday season, are really just little computers. They access the same Internet as a desktop or laptop, and display content in the same way. If you are considering giving one as a gift to a youngster, please install a kid-safe browser like Safe Eyes Mobile before you do.

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One of our customers in Tampa, Florida, recently appeared on WFLA-TV to talk about how Safe Eyes helps protects his daughter when she is online. One of the best points that Jason makes is that he isn’t worried about what his daughter does online, but he is worried about what everyone else is doing online.

Video reposted with permission from WFLA-TV, Tampa.

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A recent report by the Associated Press indicates that Sentry and Family Safe, two major parental control software brands, are selling data pulled directly from kids’ chats to businesses that want to use the information for tailoring marketing strategies towards children.

Apparently the companies sold data from chat logs through a separate data-mining service called Pulse, which fed off the data created, unwittingly, by users of Sentry and Family Safe products.

Hopefully this practice is limited to these two companies, and most filtering companies are concerned only with making a good product.

We want to assure our customers that we would never engage in this practice and that our only goal as a company is to make the best web content filters available. If anyone out there is worried about the privacy of their data or is simply unsatisfied with their current filtering software, we are making a special promotional offer for those that wish to switch over to Safe Eyes. Simply go to http://www.internetsafety.com/switch/ and switch to Safe Eyes while saving 30 percent off the retail price. The discount is meant to help parents cover existing contracts with other software providers.

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