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MySpace to Offer Spyware for Parents
mrspin writes "Following continuing pressure from politicians (and parts of the media), MySpace is planning to offer parents the chance to download software which will monitor aspects of their children's activities on the social networking site. From a business point of view, the move appears to be a highly risky one. The young users of social networking sites are notorious for their lack of loyalty — and history suggests that a change like this could tempt many to abandon MySpace for the 'next cool thing'."
My wife and I just demanded the myspace password for my step-daughter's account (she's 12). I kick myself for not paying any attention to that damned site, because of it's sheer obnoxiousness and ugly designs. If I had paid attention I'd have a better feel for all the "ins-and-outs" of the stupid site. I was glad to see this information brought up on the local news here; but like I said to my wife: :P
The kids will just go someplace else.
So who wants to fund the next "myspace killer" with me?
put the what in the where?
I thought that MS was the only company that could so effortlessly shoot themselves in the feet. Parental monitoring should pretty much put an end to much of the MySpace userbase.
Interestingly, if parents can do this with some software, is the government already doing it for them, but just not telling? I have to wonder about any company that will offer to 'spy' on you or your kids. I'm sort of interested in finding out how they will know that it is a parent of the account holder they are willing to spy on? Does the software have to be installed on the same computer as the child uses? That would only last about a week before its cracked.... expect YouTube videos on how to disable it within the week.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
"Would you tap your teenagers phone calls?" My parents sure would have. My sister has caught them looking through saved iChat logs (iChat can be set to save all of your conversations). I routinely use a who command in terminal if I have it open to see who's looking at what I'm doing.
This sig is neither interesting, nor humorous. Including meta-humor.
Trust.
Thus, I have no sympathy for kids who resent being spied on by their parents... it's their parent's property, they have every right to know every detail of how it is used. If they don't like their parents spying on them on the parents' computer then they should just not use their parents' computer... and find alternative methods of keeping in touch with their buddies that the parents won't be able to monitor because it's outside their jurisdiction.
And if parents don't like that kids will inevitably find such methods, tough. They should have thought of that before they had kids in the first place if they can't deal with the fact that their kid might be more ingenious than they are. Ideally, you teach them the whole time they are young how to make smart choices so that by the time they are making their own possibly life-altering decisions they will do the right thing... then spying on your kids would just be superfluous.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It seems to me that most people who advocate covert spying are also the same people that push the mantra of, "If you have nothing to hide then why should you care?"