EU Urges Sites To Improve Child Safety Policies
The European Commission Tuesday urged social networking sites to improve their child safety policies. As part of Safer Internet Day, the commission released a report that found that half of European teens give out personal information on the Web and urged teens to "think before you post."
The commission, the European Union's regulatory arm, praised the steps taken by the 20 Web sites that signed on to the "Safer Social Networking Principles" proposed by the commission last year but said more needs to be done to protect teens online. In particular, the commission is urging social networking sites to make profiles of minors visible only to their friends by default.
"Last year the European Commission urged companies to act, and I am glad that many have heeded this call," EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding said in a statement. "However, I expect all companies to do more. Minors' profiles need to be set to private by default and questions or abuse reports have to receive quick and appropriate responses."
The commission's study examined 25 sites operated by the 20 firms that signed on to the safer Internet principles, including some of the post popular sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Flickr. It found many sites have taken important steps including making it easier for users to block some users, to remove comments from their profiles, and to change their privacy settings to choose who can see their profiles.
But it also found that only 40 percent sites surveyed, including Facebook, Flickr and MySpace, make personal information posted by minors visible only to their friends by default. Half of the 22 sites surveyed make it impossible for private profiles of minors to be found through a search engine. And while most sites had a link available at all times for reporting problems, only nine out of 22 responded to complaints submitted during the survey. As a result, the commission said there is "an urgent need for better services to respond to users' reports asking for help."
Join the Discussion
The National Journal Group has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.
Comments powered by Disqus