How to Protect Your Child's Privacy Online [Voices]

From: The Ilana <>
Reply-to: The Ilana <>
When: Mon, 20 Sep 2010 03:01:35 -0600

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How to Protect Your Child’s Privacy Online [Voices]

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal


Websites popular among children and teens place more tracking
technologies on users’ computers than do the top websites aimed at
adults, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found. But parents can
take steps to limit their children’s exposure.


Web-browsing activity is tracked by “cookies,” “beacons” and
“Flash cookies,” small computer files or software programs
installed on a computer when a user visits some Web pages. Some are
useful. But others are used by companies to track users from site to
site and build profiles of their online activities.


All Internet users, whether adults or children, can limit tracking by
adjusting settings on Web browsers and Adobe Systems Inc.’s (ADBE) 
popular Flash program. These settings can delete cookies and limit
what types of cookies may be placed on the computer. For additional
protection, parents also can install small programs, called “add-
ons,” to a child’s browser. And parents can prevent children from
seeing behaviorally targeted ads through tools provided by the ad
networks.


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Sent from iPhone, sorry for the typos