Jessica Bell
Internet Marketing
Kevin Trainor
August 7, 2007


Senate Asks FTC to Oversee Internet Safety

Internet has become a major part of Americans everyday life. We can shop, bank, book travel, watch movies, listen to music and so much more. However, along with all the perks of being an internet user there comes risks. Personal identity and financial risks are at the top of the list. Above these risks with the internet is the even scarier risk being the safety of children. Children are using the internet at an extremely young age for both leisure and academics. With such young children having knowledge of how to access the web, they are still too young to grasp the complete concept of how the web can be dangerous to them or realizing what they may be getting themselves into. Due to this fact Senate has asked the FTC to invest more efforts in promoting internet safety. According to the article I found, “Senate Asks FTC to Oversee Internet Safety” it sounds as though the Senate wants to generally make the public more aware of the dangers that come with the internet, but more importantly put emphasis on making children more aware of how to be safe. They are instructing The Federal Trade Commission to provide tutorials for school aged children focusing on the effects of ‘cyberbullying’ and child pornography. They are doing this because children have high potential to delve into unknown areas of the internet and stumble across predators without even being aware they have put themselves in jeopardy. A child being susceptible to dangers like this is a problem that is always going to be there with internet usage. Senate wants to try to lessen the impact by increasing their knowledge. I felt this article was relevant to our class discussions because of the safety issues surrounding social networking. The article barely touches on the usage of Facebook and MySpace but I feel these are two sites that can potentially pose a major threat to youngsters. They are two of the most visited sites by young people. At this point both social networks have been opened to the general public and virtually anyone can open an account on these sites. It seems like this should be a major issue focused on when trying to keep children safe. It would be very easy for someone to create an account on these websites and portray themselves as someone other then who they are. Kids should be explained the dangers of posting too much personal information and pictures on these sites. These sites are a great way for adults and for younger individuals to stay in touch with friends in a way they would normally not be able to. However, when it comes to the safety of minors they can pose a large threat. I think it is great that Senate has put safety of minors on the internet as a priority but they should certainly focus some efforts directly on social networking.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070806/tc_zd/212927;_ylt=Ag3OP02QzFLqtMQUSkY9yTv6VbIF