The blogosphere has been abuzz lately with projections of who President-elect Obama will choose for the new position of Chief Technology Officer. This blog from the Washington Post focuses on the announcement that Julius Genachowski will be helping the transition team pick the new members for the technology team.  One issue mentioned --online privacy -- should be an important issue in the next Administration.

 

"Obama has said he would also focus on protecting online privacy of users and improve access to broadband Internet services by increasing speed standards for broadband and freeing up more government spectrum for public use."

 

I'm pleased that the new Administration considers online privacy to be a significant issue.  Sounds like the Obama Administration agrees with my view that online privacy is the ultimate online safety concern.

 

 

Check out this interesting survey I saw titled: Gender and Online Privacy among Teens: Risk Perception, Privacy Concerns, and Protection Behaviors . The study yields intriguing findings regarding privacy concerns and behaviors by gender.
 

Consumer Reports National Research Center recently conducted a very interesting and telling survey on how Internet users view privacy. It seems that people are not necessarily opposed to having personal information on the Internet, they just don't want their information tracked and then sold without their knowledge.  Donna Tapellini with Consumer Reports blog, hit the nail on the head when she said that people want more control over what's happening.  There are some benefits for consumers to this tracking process, but we all need to understand that this is happening and have some control.  In order for consumers to have control and make an informed choice, we need greater transparency from online companies.

 

I saw this clip on Tech Daily Dose and thought it was worth noting. FTC Chairman William Kovacic, C-SPAN host Pedro Echevarria and Congress Daily tech reporter Andrew Noyes discussed online privacy policies over the weekend. They discussed mobile marketing, electronic health records privacy, the future of enforcement of spam, the President's Task Force on Identity Theft report and how search engines use information to target advertising to users.

As Congress plans to explore privacy issues next year, it's great to have the FTC engaged in these discussions now. To view the clip you can go to the C-SPAN site here.

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a Family Online Safety Institute roundtable discussion on the issues families are facing with online safety. Hosted at the Googleplex, our morning started with a screening of "Growing Up Online", the PBS documentary that takes a look at some of the real issues kids are facing on the Internet from cyberbullying to online predators. Kids these days seem overly willing to post their personal information and pictures on the Internet and don't realize that it may haunt them down the road.

 

This was the third time I have seen the documentary and every time I learn something new.  It truly is an incredible video that every family should sit down and watch together. The producer, Rachel Dretzin, was there to answer questions about the documentary and explain to the crowd why she was inspired to make this film. She shared some of the incredible feedback she has received over the past couple of months from families across the country.

 

Following the screening, Stephen Balkam, the CEO of FOSI, along with Anne Collier, (author of "MySpace Unraveled") led a roundtable discussion about what the current problems and challenges we are facing with our kids who have grown up online - and how do we go about educating parents on how to respond to this problem.

 

Our very busy day was a fascinating experience and turned out to be one of the most candid, open discussions I've heard on how to keep kids safe online. We need to educate parents about what their kids are doing online. I think many parents do not know what their kids are up to on their computers and even if parents do have an idea - they might not know how to respond to it. Our discussion was a great way to hear the ideas from leaders in the field and to start working together to give parents the education they need.  I plan to keep this discussion going to help address online safety and privacy concerns!

I recently attended and participated in the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Summit in Aspen, Colorado.

 

The Summit panel discussion topics included new debates about intermediary liability on the Internet, online behavioral advertising, marketing and privacy, and next generation network policy.   In addition, there was a fascinating panel discussion about communications and information policy with government officials from Mexico, Germany, Japan and Spain.  Ambassador David Gross (US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy with the U.S. Department of State) served as moderator for the session.

 

I spoke at one of the program's working dinners, addressing "Kids, Media and Marketing:  Child Safety and Privacy in a Web 2.0 World."  This working dinner discussion, moderated by PFF's Adam Thierer, focused on legislative and regulatory proposals that would regulate various types of media content, platforms, or forms of online communications and commerce in response to child safety and privacy concerns.  The lively off-the-record discussion also included remarks from several congressional staff, as well as representatives from Microsoft, MySpace.com, and the Family Online Safety Institute.

 

I spoke about the results of my online safety survey conducted a few months ago,, highlighting the generational differences regarding safety and the respondents overwhelming concern about protecting personal privacy.

 

Overall, the Summit provided me with some thoughtful new views on communications policy issues both in the U.S. and abroad, current policy debates, as well as the issues we need to consider in the future.

 

This is a timely news article as students begin to head back to start a new school year. Illinois lawmakers have written a bill that will require students to take classes on Internet safety for the 2009-2010 school year. This is similar to the measures VA legislators took to make it mandatory for public schools to teach their students about the potential risks and consequences they can encounter online. I think we'll begin to see more and more states adopting this important idea. Because students are often bullied by their classmates, kids need to receive information from their teachers and school administrators on what to do when they are cyberbullied or are encountering other problems on the Internet. The more we can educate our children on this issue the smarter -- and safer -- they will become while surfing the net.

I recently read a Washington Post article, "Virtual Worlds Get Real About Punishment," in which Kim Hart reported that virtual worlds are now establishing self policing systems.  These "self policing" systems allow users to bring other users who misbehave to trial, complete with indictments, court cases and punishments. These virtual worlds have started to use legal codes and justice systems to police their members' behavior!

 

This is a very interesting development in the online world -- virtual communities setting and enforcing their own laws!  Just as my colleague Stephen Balkam from FOSI said in the article, I too applaud efforts to reduce abusive behavior in virtual worlds.  Now not only are our kids getting into trouble in virtual worlds, but they are also punishing each other in these virtual worlds.  It should be a red flag to parents: they need to be fully aware of what is going on online. As the online world evolves, parents need to keep up with what is happening in order to supervise their kids' online experiences.

 

Our survey showed that people of all ages are concerned about privacy and safety on the Internet, but when asked if "people can put themselves in danger" on the Internet, the various generations responded with different answers.

*           Almost half (48%) of wired Older Americans age 65 and older strongly agree the Internet can be a dangerous place
*           39% of those age 50-64
*           32% of those age 35-49  
*           21% of those age 18-34 

 

As part of the survey, we asked the same questions of teens and their parents in the same household and compared answers. We found that 31% of these teens strongly agree the Internet can be dangerous.

 

These generational gaps are quite revealing. It's interesting that the older the Internet users are, the greater their concern that they "can put themselves in danger."   While Internet users under the age of 34 are the least worried that "people can put themselves in danger on the Internet," they tend to be the age group more willing to post pictures and personal information about themselves online!

 

Younger Internet users could be unaware that the information they are sharing can have consequences for their personal privacy. In today's digital world it is important to make sure that all generations  do not put themselves in danger. Let's keep the conversation going with our kids - and our parents - about staying safe online. There are many helpful tools available on the web and from our ISPs.  Now is the time to use them.

 

As a mother, I also thought the numbers below from the 2008 Online Safety Survey were very interesting. When parents and their teens were asked the same questions about monitoring teen use of the computer and Internet activity, there were some discrepancies in their answers.

 

·        52 percent of parents say they sit alongside their teenager whenever they are online to monitor activity; but only 33% of teens in those same households confirm that

·        51 percent of parents say they visit their teen's social networking site; 30% of teens confirm that

 

Hmm... the numbers just don't quite match up. It seems that parents may think they are monitoring their teens, but their teens are saying that they aren't monitoring as closely as they think they are.

 

In the Web 2.0 world we live in, being online is a necessity.  But the results from this survey make me stop and think about what kind of questions this raises. What are the implications of this for consumers?  For society?  When we're online, how do we ensure that we are in charge of the information collected about us and how it is used? Are we even aware that what we put out there- either knowingly or unknowingly- compromises our privacy?