Social Media & Internet Security All the services that KidsSafe Managed Router tracks allow your child to interact with other people in a variety of ways. When your child signs up for a website, some personal information is required. On social networking sites that information can include: name, address, birthday, age, sex, religion, etc. After a person is a member on a site, they can also often post photos, videos, and comments. On social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, a user signs up for an account, enters personal information, and becomes friends with other people on the same website. On a social networking site such as Twitter, a user enters tweets or comments and pictures that are sent to a public forum. On a site like Photobucket, a user can post photos, videos, and comments, but their personal information is not available to others. All social networking websites have privacy settings to limit the information that others can see, and most social networking sites work on a friend basis. If your child has privacy settings enabled, your child must accept a friend request from someone before that person can see personal information that your child has entered in their profile. There are varying degrees of privacy that can be enabled, and if your child has not enabled any privacy settings, anyone on the site can see the information your child posts. Additionally, most information posted to any social networking site is never removed, even if the user deletes their comment or picture. The Terms of Service on most social sites specifically state that information you post is not really yours to control. Plus, employers are using social networking sites to see what potential hires are up to, and it s possible that predators are looking for children who post too much information about where they live and go to school.
Amazon.com Facts Launched in 1995, Amazon is an online commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is America s largest online retailer. Amazon allows users to submit reviews, starred ratings of each product, and photos that are displayed on the product s web page. Users may also create a Wish List of products they would like to own. Each user has a profile page that contains all their product reviews, wish lists, and friends, and to this they may add a photo, their location, and a short personal description. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.amazon.com
Bebo.com Facts Founded in January of 2005, Bebo is a social networking site that allows users to create a profile page that may be linked to their Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other accounts. The profile page can be personalized with a design template called a skin. Each profile contains, at minimum, a list of friends and a comment section, but users can also share photos, videos, blog updates, and other available modules. Bebo automatically adds updates to an interactive timeline. By default, profiles are private and only available to those approved as friends. However, if a user joins a school group on bebo, all members of that school can see the user s profile. Users can also set age restrictions on who may contact them through Bebo. SERVICE ADDRESS: www.bebo.com Brightkite.com Facts Brightkite is a location based social networking site that is available worldwide on any mobile device. Users check in at various locations by text messaging or using a mobile application (for devices such as iphone, Android, Blackberry or Symbian) to see who is nearby currently and who has been through this point already. That could include networked friends and people looking to meet people. Users can choose to push their check-in statuses to Twitter or Facebook and also have the option to share their geotagged photos on Flickr. Users can also opt to set their location for every note/photo they post and can block networked people, if they want. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://brightkite.com/ Dailymotion.com Facts Dailymotion is a video-sharing service website. Users create a profile page that lists their videos, favorites, friends, and a brief biography with photo. Videos can be kept private, shared only with family and friends, or open to the public. Users can review and rate videos. A social networking element allows users to befriend or subscribe to other users. The site also has a message board where users can join groups and discuss various topics. SERVICE ADDRESS: www.dailymotion.com
ebay.com Facts ebay is an online auction and shopping website where a broad spectrum of goods and services are sold. With over 90 million active users worldwide, ebay is the largest online marketplace in the world. After each sale, the buyer and the seller are asked to rate and comment on the transaction; those ratings become part of the buyer and sellers profiles. Profiles are public and track each user s ratings and comments for the benefit of other users. Users with high positive feedback are considered more trustworthy; those with negative feedback or new profiles may have difficulty making transactions. Founded in 1995, in 2009 the total worth of goods sold on ebay was billion. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.ebay.com
Facebook.com Facts Facebook is a social networking site with more than 400 million active users. Facebook allows users to create profiles that share photos, links, videos, and status updates with friends. Profiles can also contain contact information, lists of personal interests, and other personal information. Users can create and join fan and interest groups, send private messages, and use a chat feature. Privacy settings determine who can see each aspect of a user s profile. Facebook opened to anyone over 13 years old in 2006. SERVICE ADDRESS: www.facebook.com
Flickr.com Facts Flickr allows users to put photos and videos online from the web, from mobile devices, from the users home computers and from whatever software they are using to manage their content. Then, Flickr allows user to push them out in as many ways as possible: on the Flickr website, in RSS feeds, by email, by posting to outside blogs or ways we haven t thought of yet. Launched in February 2004. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.flickr.com
Flixster.com Facts Founded in June of 2005, Flixster is a social site for movie fans. Users create a profile in which they can rate movies, write reviews, add photos, and list favorite movies and actors. Users may link to friends using multiple privacy settings. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.flixster.com
MySpace.com Facts MySpace is a social networking site that launched in 2003. Users can create a MySpace Profile page that can make use of custom skins and music. On their profile page, users may post photos, videos, status updates, their age, hometown, school, mood, and a biography. MySpace provides a space for blogging, an instant messenger service, and forums. Users can link to friends who can leave comments on their profile pages. Every profile has the option of being private, meaning only friends can see the details of a profile. MySpace operates solely on revenues generated by advertising as its user model possesses no paid-for features for the end user. Through its website and affiliated ad networks, MySpace is second only to Yahoo! in its capacity to collect data about its users and thus in its ability to use behavioral targeting to select the ads each visitor sees. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.myspace.com
Twitter.com Facts Twitter enables users to publish Tweets: text-based posts of up to 140 characters. Tweets are posted to a user s profile page and published to subscribers called followers. Twitter was founded in 2006 and was followed by numerous other services, like Twitgoo, which allow users to share tweets and photos on Twitter. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://www.twitter.com
YouTube.com Facts YouTube is a website for sharing videos. Users can upload, view and share all types of clips music, TV, movie, video blogs or short original clips. Any visitor to the site can view the clips, but only registered users both individual and corporate can upload them. Clips with questionable or offensive content are only available for viewing by registered users 18 years of age or older. YouTube also allows for unlisted clips, which are available only to those who know the link, and private clips for viewing only by up to 25 YouTube users. All clips allow for viewer commenting. YouTube clips can be embedded anywhere links can be attached. SERVICE ADDRESS: http://youtube.com