Zeno's Bar & Grill

The WSJ reported on Thursday about new technology that allows parents to monitor their children’s internet usage from a remote location (like from work). Companies such as SpectorSoft, SafeBrowse, and ContentWatch have software that can send parents copies of emails, instant messages, and even allow parents to actually take a peek at what their progeny are viewing when they think that no one is around. Some of the parents don’t even tell their children that they are doing this, or at least not until something comes up that warrants a confrontation.

My children are too young to want to see anything more risqué on the computer than Kim Possible, but I’d like to think that we would have enough trust not to use these virtual spying techniques. I was upset about learning that the government may have been tracking my phone calls without my knowledge and I imagine that it would be the same feeling a teen-ager would have upon learning that their parents were secretly tracking their web use. The loss of trust between parent and child may do more harm than the good the parents think they are doing. That said, however, I realize that there are cases where this might be necessary, and in the six years that I’ve been a parent I’ve certainly done many things that I vowed I would never do before I had kids.

A frightening point that the article studiously avoids is the question of what’s to prevent employers or the government from using the same technology on us. I’m sure that everyone visits sites that they’d rather other people didn’t know about (even if it’s just checking for spoilers on your favorite reality shows.)

--Kelly