Internet service lets parents eye child’s circle of friends

Cyber security could be a full-time job for any parent.

On the checklist: Printing out the child’s transcripts from social networking sites, checking e-mails, trolling Facebook and MySpace in real time.

It never ends.

“You have to be active every second,” says Bob Baty-Barr, a Chicago parent of two sons, 10 and 11.

That’s why Mr. Baty-Barr turned to YouDiligence.com, a cyber security service that eases the burden for the parent.

“It’s not a silver bullet, but it makes my life a lot easier,” Mr. Baty-Barr says.

What the service does is send parents e-mail alerts when red-flag words appear on their children’s and the children’s friends’ social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, no matter what computer the children are using.

Essentially, the service tracks the child’s activities on those sites as opposed to tracking activities on a specific computer. The service does not track which Web sites a child visits or block access to certain sites.

“We track and gather information on everything from iPhones to school computers — wherever the child is using a computer,” says Kevin Long, president of YouDiligence. “The responsibility still lies with the parents, but this service doesn’t require them to be quite as active.”

Red-flag words, for example, could be “crack” or “shot.” So, when these and others appear, the service — practically in real time — will send an alert to the parent not only of the words themselves, but where they appeared and in what context.

“It’ll gather information and send out alerts no matter what time of day or night,” Mr. Long says.

Context is usually important since words like those above can be innocuous or ominous depending on what words appear before and after.

“Shot” could be used to describe scoring a goal — or killing someone. “Crack” could be used to describe solving a mystery — or a hard-core, and in many cases, lethal drug.

YouDiligence supplies general red-flag words and parents can add to or subtract from that list.

In the six-months Mr. Baty-Barr has subscribed to the service — it costs $9.99 a month for one child, $14.99 for two or $19.99 for three or more children — he has received about a half-dozen alerts. All were “false positives.”

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