Kid-safe version of mainstream sites

Kids are becoming smarter with each generation. They are getting comfortable with technology at earlier and earlier age. Today intenet forms a very integral component of my kids both education and entertainment needs. This blog post is an attempt to attract attention to an unfulfilled need of an kid friendly need for main stream sites.

I am aware of the superior parental control features of the the computer. But in todays age most of the stuff kids (at least my kids) do is online, not on the computer. I do use parental control to block sites, or better still do it via opendns. but it is a all or nothing deal. I dont want want to block the mainstream site itself, I want to sandbox the site.

My kids use gmail, youtube, google, wikipedia, google image search. I want them to get started with blogging and start tweeting/and facebooking. All of these sites are designed with an adult in mind. Infact I cant even get an account for my kids. They point me to [COPA][http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens.html]. Most sites require you to be atleast 13 to legitimately open an account. Are they serious ? Can today’s kids can live off the internet till they are tweens ?

I think there are legit concerns about the privacy/safety online. Big sites also might be concerned about the potential liability. and ofcourse as the kids cant have the cerdit card and buy stuff online they might not be an attractive marketing target and thus are more trouble they are worth to most site.

Anyhow, what I am dreaming or hoping one of the internet giants will do is the following. and hopefully if one of them shows the way they other will have to follow :)

• Have a kid friendly version of the site. Kids need to have their ids tied to their parent account.
• Kids are allowed to communicate (send/receive) messages from only those “friends” that are approved by parents.
• Any invites/friend both inbound/outbound is sent to the parent account to approve
• All account activity is logged with the summary support sent to parent account
• All posts from adults have to self attested as “kid-safe” to show up on kids account, any adult post that show up on kids accounts always also show up on the parent account too.
• Any search is hardwired to the “safe” filter (similar to what google uses in its searches)

Just some ideas on what will make mainstream internet sites kids friendly. If one of the Big Guys dont step up, hopefully there will be a overlay site that bolts on these features.. Just wishful thinking

I do realize that as parents our responsibility would not end if this were a reality today, we do need to continue to supervise internet access. In my house Internet access is limited to the imac in the family room, so that an adult always has an eye on. No “personal” computers or laptops just yet.