Net Safety Tips On The Go, developed by GetNetWise.org, is available to Verizon Wireless customers through V CAST Apps.  V CAST Apps gives Verizon Wireless customers an ever-expanding selection of games, productivity tools, entertainment and news apps.  We are pleased to be featured so prominently by Verizon Wireless, whose dedication to family safety and personal privacy is astonishing.

The content for Net Safety Tips OTG is contributed by three of the other premier online safety education organizations in the world — Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely.org, OnGuardOnline.gov. This innovative app makes it easy for consumers and families to keep up with mobile and online privacy, safety, and security issues using their Android smartphone or tablet. Net Safety Tips OTG is also looking for additional content partners. Contact us at info@netsafetyapp.org

If you have an Android phone or tablet download the App from the Market by searching for “Net Safety Tips.” Visit http://netsafetyapp.org/ for more information.

Additional Links

Verizon Wireless Press Release

Now Available in V CAST Apps: Net Safety Tips On The Go – The First-Ever Online Safety and Security Education App

FierceWireless Article

Verizon, Google team on Android digital safety and security app
June 20, 2011, By Jason Ankeny

If you have an Android phone or tablet download the App from the Market by searching for “Net Safety Tips.” Visit http://netsafetyapp.org/ for more information. The press release is here.

Many parents simply call their children and ask them where they are. While teens use mobile phones, they seldom use them to speak. Asking a teen to “answer” or pick up a call may be a tall order. You will need to learn how to text “where R U?” if you want a more prompt response.

Some wireless carriers offer parents GPS location tracking services for their children’s phones. Now, smartphones contain a growing array of Apps that can be used by parents to quickly locate their children.

A really interesting and easy App that parents can use is called Glympse (available on iPhone, Android and Windows 7). Glympse is an App that allows t(w)eens to quickly send to their parents a glympse of where they are on a map. Unlike other location tracking tools, Glympse allows users to send a short duration peak at where they are. After the specified period of time is over the other person can no longer view the location of the user — it simply times out. We think this is a very effective privacy feature. Check out the “What is Glympse” page for a helpful video.

Of course there are some caveats. Keep in mind that parents should use tools like Glympse responsibly and realize that they are not foolproof. Parents should explain to their children why they want them to check in with their location (who knows, kids may rather send a Glympse than a text message or, heaven forbid, actually talk on the phone). Further, never ask your teen to initiate a Glympse or text while they are driving a car. And lastly, use this conversation as an opportunity to talk to your children about your concerns with their sharing their location information with people they don’t know or don’t trust. We are generally concerned with the amount of uninformed location sharing that is being done on social networking sites and mobile phones.

Good luck.

Obviously, those of us in the online safety community are deeply, deeply concerned about nefarious use of a child’s physical location. Frankly, the thought is terrifying. Thus parents and social networking companies need to take the distribution of kids’ mobile location very seriously.

Now, for teen users (those under 18 yeas old) Facebook only allows their “Friends” to see the places they have checked into. Even if the teen foolishly changes their privacy settings to allow “Everyone” to see their information, Facebook automatically prohibits anyone but the teen’s friend from seeing their mobile location in the physical world. This is a positive privacy and safety measure by Facebook. However, this auto feature does not exist for those over the age of 17 who set their profile to “Everyone”

Of course, the teen’s safety and privacy really hinges on whether they trust those in her “Friends” list. As a general rule, parents should talk to teens about limiting their Facebook “Friends” list to only those they know and trust. If they don’t, none of their information is safe — especially their physical location.

More about Places can be found on ConnectSafely.org and on Facebook itself.

Today Google launched its new Family Safety Center — a one stop shop for great Google tips and tools for staying safe online. It’s featured at Google.com/familysafety/. The Family Safety Center interface is typical of Google’s other products and services — it’s clean and easy-to-navigate. The Center presents family safety resources for using the Google ecosystem of products and services such as Safe Searching (including Mobile) and YouTube family safety. It also provides great advice on how you can help everyone’s safety online by reporting abuse.

If your family uses lots of Google services like search, YouTube and Picassa, you can find instructions and videos on how to use these products more safely. The safe search information shows you how to prevent sexually explicit search results — and make that setting permanent. You can also learn how to make YouTube searches safer for kids.

See More at Google’s Blog post

Fortunately, Apple has provided a quick way to opt out of “interest-based” advertising if you’d prefer not to share your data with iAds. You will still see ads on your device, but they won’t be targeted based on personal information (although they still might be related to the content of the application you’re running). Just point your iOS4 device’s web browser to http://oo.apple.com. You should see a message telling you that the opt-out was successful.  If you have more than one device running iOS 4, you must opt-out individually for each device.

It’s worth noting that this opt out does not affect the collection of location-based data – though Apple assures us that location information is collected anonymously and safely.

Click here for more details from Apple.