Family Privacy in an Internet World

1. Family Privacy in an Internet World Annette Burns, Attorney Edith A. Croxen, Attorney AFCC Regional Training Conference Reno, Nevada November, 2009

2. The Internet World • The internet is now a “Cloud” • The internet cloud is “a collection of utilities built on internet technologies for on-demand services” • Also known as SaaS or Software as a Service • Sample Clouds: Amazon Web Services Google Apps Force.com Microsoft Windows Azure Salesforce.com

3. What does the internet look like? • It has physical locations. • In the U.S.: Miami, Florida - NAP of the Americas • Columbia River Valley – Google, • Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon • Microsoft facility alone is 469,000 square feet which could house seven Boeing 747s and is cooled by the Columbia River

4. How can we use the internet and remain safe and sane? • Security Issues • Searching Issues • Control Issues

5. Security Issues • THE INTERNET IS NOT SECURE!!! • Identity theft – five times more likely by stolen wallet than high tech hacking • But, exposure of personal emails and information can only be done on the internet • Security services recommend consumers learn password protection rules • ISPs and Secondary ISPs

6. Passwords need to be different for each utility • Use a combination of letters and numbers or symbols from the keyboard • Do not store on computer • Choose false questions and false answers or make up obscure security questions.

7. Searching Issues • Define how you want to use the internet, personally and professionally • Take a few hours to find the best search engines for your needs • Search engines are not content-driven sites; they are search-only sites • A good search engine does your work for you • There are search engines to find search engines: • Dogpile.com; hotbot.com

8. Legal Search Engines and Portals FindLaw’s Law Crawler (http://lawcrawler.lp.findlaw.com) This site is programmed to search only sites that contain legal information. Legal Portals and Directories The difference between portals and search engines is that the portals are human constructed and monitored. • Legal portals and directories are usually sponsored by one of five different groups: 1. Commercial entities 2. Law firms 3. Governments 4. Academic Institutions 5. Associations • “A high quality, useful legal portal or directory should: (1) be reliable by being credible, up-to-date and objective; (2) include a subject directory and preferably a jurisidictional directory; (3) link directly to many relevant sites; and (4) be user friendly (intuitive).” Levitt and Rosch, The Cybersleuth’s Guide to the Internet

9. Legal Portals: • HierosGamos (HG) • http://www.hg.org • Nolo Press • http://www.nolo.com • RSS Feed – electronic update services that allows blog to automatically deliver information continuously to desktop

10. Control Issues • Parental Controls • Keeping your computer clean Delete Cookies Delete Files Delete History Clean Disk Defragment

11. Internet News • President Obama’sfacebook/myspace • www.heariam.tv?s=75989 • Federal Trade Commission – 2008 Proposed Rules of Net Behavioral Advertising • Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) • CFAA – Computer Fraud and Abuse Act • TeleCrunch.com A site which publishes hacker materials

12. Family Privacy Orders • Parental Controls of Home Computers. • Both parents will use parental controls on all computers which are accessible to the minor children. In the event an adult’s computer does not have parental controls, it shall be password protected with a secure password unknown to the child. The parental controls shall include content and user time limitations. Parents shall only use secure sites to download children’s games and shall review the content prior to allowing the child to participate in any internet game.

13. Minor’s participation in Facebook/My Space/Twitter and other interactive social networking internet activities. • The minor may participate in obtaining these accounts (upon agreement by both parties) but (each) parent will have the minor’s password for any of these accounts and shall be able to completely monitor, and, if necessary, shut down the account. • All accounts regarding the minor shall be private accounts and shall not be open to public use. The parents will monitor periodically to determine whether the child’s “friends” are appropriate and shall block and “friend” which the parent deems in appropriate.

14. Use of photographs of children on the internet. In the event either parent desires to post photographs of the children on a social networking or other internet site, that parent will maintain the privacy of the site by blocking unknown persons and will block “friends of friends.” Additionally, any photograph of the child shall be appropriate for age and content and shall not include any nudity or partial nudity. The parent will take any other necessary security precautions as may be required from time to time.

15. Telephone for minor. • A telephone for the minor child shall not be provided by either parent prior to the child’s tenth birthday. Any telephone provided for the child from age 10 until age 12 shall be restricted to the telephone numbers the parent(s) elect and shall include 911. • After age 12, the minor’s phone may be unrestricted (upon agreement of the parties ) and the parent providing the telephone shall allow unrestricted text messaging. In the event the minor requests a Twitter account, the parents shall strictly monitor said account for content appropriateness

16. Inappropriate Internet Activities. • The minor child shall not be exposed to any pornography in either parent’s home or in any situation in which the parent is aware that the minor may be exposed to pornography. This includes the use of avatars to enter internet virtual worlds such as Second Life or others which may from time to time exist. • The parents will monitor any virtual interactive games the child may be involved in for appropriate content and activity. If the parent cannot or does not do so, the site will be removed from the minor’s participation by an appropriate computer parental control.

17. Notification to each parent. Each parent will notify the other at any time there is a change to the minor’s accounts, internet activities or other significant event regarding the minor’s privacy or potential invasion thereof. • Parents will take reasonable precautions that a parent’s significant other or spouse is made aware of these family privacy orders and shall monitor the use of the minor’s privacy information (including photographs) by the parent’s significant other or spouse.

18. New Issues. The parents will maintain communication about any new developments on the internet or internet related devices which may negatively impact the minor and will cooperate with each other to address any such issues.