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Symantec also announced today the formation of the Norton Online Family Advisory Council, a committee of experts in education, parenting, media and child health, and child online safety that will test the beta, provide feedback and offer insight on issues relevant to its continued development.
"Norton Online Family takes a different approach from today's parental control solutions by providing tools that help parents understand their kids' online world and fostering communication," said Marian Merritt, Symantec's Internet Safety Advocate and Norton Online Family Advisory Council lead. "These tools include the ability to show what kids are actually searching for on ten different search sites, including Google, YouTube and Wikipedia. Parents can also confirm kids' IM friends and monitor conversations with unconfirmed friends, as well as see the number and type of social networking accounts their kids have and their published age on these sites."
The Norton Online Family Advisory Council is comprised of members who are leaders in their field, concerned about the cause of children's online safety and interested in fostering better communication between parents and children. Members include:
• Dr. David S. Bickham – PhD, Staff Scientist, Center on Media and Child Health
Children's Hospital, Boston
• Anne Collier – Co-Director, ConnectSafely.org
• Marsali Hancock - President, Internet Keep Safe Coalition (http://www.ikeepsafe.org)
• Robin Raskin – "The Internet Mom"
• Tim Sullivan – President, PTO Today (Parent Teacher Organization) and School Family Media, Inc.
• Vanessa Van Petten – Teen Author & Blogger, OnTeensToday.com
Norton Online Family allows parents with little to no technical expertise to gain a better understanding of their children's online world. While standard software solutions focus on tools that enable parents to control and monitor children's Internet use, Norton Online Family was designed to empower parents to do more. It offers busy parents quick and easy insight into what children see, learn and do online, and it gives them the tools to foster an open, ongoing dialogue with children about their online lives.
To use Norton Online Family on a PC or Mac, parents simply sign up and create a family account. Parents download and install Norton Safety Minder, a small application, onto each child's computer. As a Web-based service, Norton Online Family is able to track the Internet activities of each child in real-time. Parents enjoy peace of mind with instant reporting and the convenience of accessing their account anytime from any Internet-connected device.
Norton Online Family is sleek and easy-to-use. It is uniquely designed for busy parents who need quick and easy insight into their children's online activities and who want to foster an open, on-going dialogue with their children both on- and off-line.
About Norton Online Family:
• Simple and intuitive set-up: Requires little tech know-how from parents to set-up and use
• Promotes trust and transparency: Children are notified when Norton Online Family is active; there is no way for parents to go into "stealth" mode to monitor activity.
• Commitment to communication: Parents are encouraged to have "The Talk" with children about common-sense online safety and Internet interests; notifications help foster ongoing discussions about online activity
• Logical search monitoring: Allows parents to track what children search for; providing insight into their intentions by listing, step by step, where each search leads
• Clear reporting: Filters out extra URLs from media-heavy Web sites, showing parents only those sites children actually visited
• Insight into social networks: Compatible with most social networking sites, showing parents when children login and displaying their submitted name and age
The public beta of Norton Online Family offers the following key benefits:
Easy to Use
• Simple, One-Time Set Up: Create one account online for the whole family in minutes. No complicated settings required as it automatically creates age appropriate settings for each child – all of which parents can easily change.
• Easy to Use and Access: Check a child's activity or modify a child's profile, preferences, or time allotment anytime and anywhere using any Internet-connected device.
• Clear Reporting: All activities are reported in chronological order and only show the Web sites a child intended to visit – eliminating all the extra URLs, like ads, from media-heavy Web sites.
• Understand Their Intent: Easily view search words and phrases a child uses and where those searches lead online.
Encourages Discussion
• Custom Alerts: Parents can customize e-mail alerts to address urgent events so they know immediately when a child has reached a time limit or visited a blocked site, etc.
• Real-time Messaging: Built-in messaging lets kids send information to their parents in real-time about their intentions when attempting to visit a blocked Web site.
• Access to Social Network Information: Monitor activity on social networks like Facebook and MySpace with the ability to see how kids represent themselves, when they login and how often.
• True Transparency: Children are able to view the "house rules" they established with parents at any time and are notified when Norton Online Family is active, so there is no "stealth" mode.
Customizable Tools for Kids' Safety
• Convenient Web Site Control: Control the Web content that flows into the home by prohibiting more than 40 topic categories.
• Useful Time Management: An easy-to-use time management feature that – if parents find it necessary - gives each child a "curfew" that will limit computer usage.
• Secured Personal Information: Track, report and prevent personal information that a child may purposely or accidentally try to send via e-mail, instant message or social networking site.
The public beta of Norton Online Family supports PCs and Macs and works across a variety of browsers, search engines, social networking sites, and chat programs to provide comprehensive family online safety.
Additional resources about family online safety, including how parents can have 'The Talk' with their kids, is available at http://www.norton.com/familyresources.
The Norton Online Family Beta is available for free to the public at https://onlinefamily.norton.com in English only.
Norton from Symantec has launched Norton Online Family in a free public beta. Norton Online Family is a new, Web-based Internet safety service that takes a whole new approach to online safety: It gives parents the tools to connect with their kids' online lives by fostering communication. The service is available at http://onlinefamily.norton.com on both Macs and PCs.
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