Microsoft finds Australian parents are clueless

William Atkins
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 09:02

Your IT - Home IT

A study by Microsoft Australia found that many parents are not protecting their children while navigating the sometimes dangerous Internet. In fact, the study found that about 30% of kids talk with strangers while online. For safety's sake: That's not good!

The Microsoft Australia study, performed on a sample of the Australian population, found that, generally, parents are doing a poor job of making sure their children are safe and protected while surfing the Internet and doing all of the other Web activities that kids do these days.

The survey, called 'For Safety's Sake' was released on March 17, 2010, found this major problem with children being on the Internet without parental support:

'¢    65% of Australian parents do not take any type of precautions'”at all'”to protect their children online while they are surfing the Web at home
'¢    60% of Australian parents allow their children to use the Internet at home without any type of supervision or restrictions'”none what so ever.

The survey also found these other potential problems with allowing children to use the Web without adult supervision:

'¢    Only 60% of parents knew that parental controls were located on their computers used by their children
'¢    About 30% of parents used parental locks to control their children's activities on the computer.

Hey there is more disturbing statistics from this Microsoft survey. Please read on.