With the header "Children & the Internet - don't let them talk to strangers" Panda cites the frightening statistic, "14% of children have arranged to meet a stranger through the Internet." Panda then poses the rhetorical question, "Children explore the Internet with the same curiosity as they discover the rest of the world. If you are interested in what your children read or buy and the friends they make in the outside world, why don't you do the same with the Internet?"
In a section titled "Virtual Innocence", several other interesting statistics are presented which may give parents some intriguing situations. The five items listed are:
The section "What is lying in wait?" warns "Whenever your children connect to the Internet unsupervised, they run the risk of falling victim to multiple threats, many of which have serious consequences. Don't leave them to face the dangers alone!" These threats are listed as "What they should have never seen" such as items that may not be appropriate for children to view, such as content which may be degrading, racist, discriminatory, sexual, violent, or other forms of inappropriate content.
The next topic warns about who children should never meet, such as pedophiles that prey on children, often posing as other children, or fantasy characters, in order to falsely gain the confidence and trust of the unsuspecting child. These encounters may result in obscene or openly sexual chats, or even worse, face-to-face meetings between the pedophile and the child. Children need to learn that email and chat rooms may likely contain untrue information sent by those who may wish to do them harm, both online and in person. Children have also been tricked or coerced into entering parents' banking and credit card information over the internet under the guise of purchasing toys, posters, games, trips, and other attractive lures.
Children, being more trusting and gullible than their parents, are more likely to be tricked into downloading inappropriate material, files, and other content that may contain worms, Trojans, viruses, or other malware that may be used for purposes of identity theft, illicit advertising, or other nefarious purposes.
In order to protect our children, Panda has several recommendations that parents should heed. First find out about the privacy policy of your internet service provider (ISP), which should let you know about what information it may gather about you and your children while surfing the net.
Second, establish clear and strict rules about when and where your children may surf the net, and what they may do while online.
Third, instruct your children that appearances can be deceptive, and that other people often pretend to be someone else, such as a pedophile adult pretending to be a child. Make it emphatically clear that your children should never meet anyone they met online without your explicit permission.
Fourth, instruct the children that they should never give out any personal information, photographs, banking, addresses and phone numbers, and other information to anyone else over the internet. Also, children should be forbidden to purchase goods or services over the internet. It is a good idea to use aliases or nicknames while online, and never use a real name.
Fifth, children should be instructed not to visit inappropriate sites, click on popup ads, open spam emails, or click on any email links. Obviously an antivirus program and firewall, both properly installed and updated, can provide some degree of protection, but still they should not be absolutely relied upon.
Obviously, Panda then promotes its comprehensive Panda Platinum Internet Security Suite as an "ally" which can help protect your children. Panda makes an excellent product, and has strong competitors, such as the Trend Micro Internet Security Suite 2005, Symantec Internet Security, McAfee Internet Security Suite, Computer Associates EZ Armor Suite, and others that can provide substantial protection to our children, and ourselves.
Many ISPs offer some degree of filtered internet service which restricts access to approved websites, restricts chat rooms, filters email for inappropriate content, and other protections.
Children are our most valuable asset, and we need to protect them.
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