According to the company, Safe Eyes screens each YouTube video individually instead of blocking the entire site, allowing children to enjoy unobjectionable material while protecting them "from over 8,000 clips about phone sex, 130,000 about girls kissing and 457,000 in the porn category."
The online adult entertainment industry uses the Restricted to Adults (RTA) website label to enhance the effectiveness of parental control software by taking the guesswork out of determining whether or not a website contains adult material.
Safe Eyes enables parents to easily block objectionable websites; control Internet use by length of time as well as time of day and day of the week; block or record instant messenger chats; and block peer-to-peer file sharing programs that may expose children to dangerous material. It also allows parents to limit email use to certain addresses, and detect the posting of inappropriate or personal information on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.
The software provides broader controls than any other filtering product, including the ability to define which websites will be blocked by category, URL and keyword; receive instant alerts about inappropriate online behavior by email, text message or phone call; and remotely change program settings or view reports from any Internet-enabled computer.
According to the company, blocking YouTube from children's Internet surfing is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater; as the site has its share of R- and even X-rated content that is as easy to find as typing "naked pictures" or "hot girls" in the search box — but it's also packed with harmlessly funny and even educational videos.
"YouTube is the third most heavily trafficked website in the world and the fourth in the U.S., after Google, Yahoo and MySpace. Blocking the whole site is unnecessary for families because it means blocking good content along with bad, including perfectly innocent videos making the rounds among friends," CEO of InternetSafety.com, Forrest Collier, said "Safe Eyes' new ability to filter out only the offensive clips solves the problem."
"Internet filtering is a useful tool for shielding children from online material they shouldn't see, but being too restrictive can backfire. There is no reason to keep kids away from every YouTube video just because some of them are off-color or otherwise undesirable," CTO of InternetSafety.com, Aaron Kenny, added. "Evaluating each video on its merits is a smarter way to handle the issue and one that will give children access to positive content ranging from footage of migrating birds to a speech from the latest political convention."
Safe Eyes is can be used in mixed Mac/PC households; with a single $49.95 annual subscription covering use on up to three Mac and/or PC computers with the ability to customize settings for each child and enforce. The product's large website blacklist is reportedly updated automatically each day, eliminating the need for manual updates.
The new YouTube controls are included in the latest edition of Safe Eyes, available at www.safeeyes.com. Parents also have the option to block YouTube entirely if they wish.