The Web is not as friendly as it seems

Jan 17, 2007 15:18 GMT  ·  By

This is the third time we talk about your children's safety today, and I can't say I planned it, it just happen, but this is a topic that should get more coverage in the media, because the number of Internet-related kidnappings increased in the last years much too much.

I am not talking about the horrible things that can happen when your kids get kidnapped, since we don't have to talk about such things as long as there are ways to prevent such situations. Most kidnaps happen when adults get in touch with your children using message boards, IRC channels and, of course, messaging networks such as Yahoo! Messenger or AIM, so all you have to do is look after your kids online conversations, become aware of potential trouble, understand what's happening and decide on the right measures to take and don't forget to help other parents keep their kids safe too.

IMSafer is a product that was built to scan instant messenger conversations in real time and look for issues that can become real problems if they are not treated the right way. After all, sometimes you don't have to forbid things to your kids, you just have to talk to them about certain problems that they may end up discussing with the wrong persons via IM networks, so IMSafer is not about spying and saying "I know you said that".

IMSafer is able to work on Mac OS X and Windows Vista and let you know when your kids get in trouble, no matter if they use MSN, AIM, ICQ or Yahoo!, and in the future, support for GTalk, Skype and some of the peer to peer networks will be added. In no longer than 90 seconds from the detection of a dangerous conversation, parents are notified via email, and the best part is that this service is free at this time, but in the future you'll have to pay a small yearly fee to watch over your kids using IMSafer.