Keeping Kids Safe Online

Online, November 13, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Jacob Andersen's 9-year-old relative was a sweet and trusting child. And when the child began to communicate with a stranger online, the child's parents and Andersen realized how easy it was for predators and others to reach children on the Internet.

"Luckily, there was nothing sexual in the communication," Anderson said. "But the letters were too personal for my relative to feel comfortable with. And he was always careful with his computer. It was in the public place and he monitored his children's accounts."

As he and his wife began to plan their own, Anderson became concerned about how to protect children from predators and strangers online. He began Kids Email in 2007 to offer parents a way to protect their children online. The service allows parent to set up an email that will:

• Allow child to only receive email from those in their contact list
• Email a copy of incoming messages to the parent
• Remove images within emails
• Remove links within emails
• Only allow specific attachment types such as: images, pictures, video, mp3s, zip, pdf, Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.
• Allow a parent to approve or deny any email sent to your children via the mail queue
• Only allow children to send email to those in their contact list
• Email a copy of outgoing messages to the parent
• Filter out offensive words found in incoming emails
• Spam filtering
• Several templates to choose from!
• A simple mode for young children as well as an advance mode for slightly older kids

Parents can sign up for a free trial at http://www.kidsemail.org/register.php.

"We don't require a credit card so it's easy for parents to try it," Andersen said. "Studies show that 48 percent of kids as young as five and six years old communicate online. Kids Email provides a safe environment that protects the child and eases the parent's mind.