{"id":871,"date":"2014-02-19T12:09:40","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T20:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/internetsafety.trendmicro.com\/?p=871"},"modified":"2014-02-19T12:29:31","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T20:29:31","slug":"wwr_17feb14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/blog\/wwr_17feb14\/","title":{"rendered":"What We’re Reading: Opt-out of Location Tracking, Filters Don’t Help, Funds for Connecting Schools, What Comcast+Time Warner Means to Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LynetteOwens_Trend_bw_edit\"<\/a>Week of February 17, 2014<\/i><\/p>\n

To help you keep up with what\u2019s going on with kids, families, schools, and technology, we\u2019ve compiled a list of stories, tips, and insights, we\u2019ve found most useful over the past week.\u00a0 What have you been reading? Tell us below or Tweet\u00a0@TrendISKF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OPT-OUT OF LOCATION TRACKING: \u00a0<\/b>A new site allows consumers to enter cell phone ID information to stop their whereabouts being tracked<\/a> by in retail stores.\u00a0 Thanks to the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), they have corralled some major mobile analytics firms to take part in this program so that if you sign up once, it applies to all (vs. having to separately let each of them know you don\u2019t want to be tracked). Some like Sen. Al Franken think this kind of tracking should always be opt-in vs. opt-out, but the FPF believes some tracking is ok within a certain context.\u00a0 \u00a0Another discussion for another day, but kudos to the FPF for creating this valuable tool for us.\u00a0 You can sign-up for the op-out at http:\/\/smartstoreprivacy.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a great story for adults and teens alike to understand how much of their privacy they give up by just owning a phone; but it also gives them a way to proactively control it if they so choose.<\/p>\n

FILTERING DOESN’T HELP<\/b>: Despite the recent push<\/a> for universal broadband in schools, teacher Abigail Walthausen claims there\u2019s a barrier to teaching children these valuable lessons<\/a>: widespread use of Internet filters in schools. In blocking harmful content, some software limits access to much important social media because of the difficulty of filtering explicit content from user generated material. Abigail claims schools should employ supervision rather than inadequate filters to monitor educational usage rather than simply shutting down rich and useful websites completely.\u00a0 We wholeheartedly agree, Abigail!<\/p>\n

FUNDS FOR CONNECTING SCHOOLS<\/b>: In a speech on Safer Internet Day<\/a> last Tuesday, NY Sen. Charles Schumer applauded the accumulation of $750 million in charitable contributions from major tech and telecom companies generated by the Obama administration. FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency would be restructuring the program\u2019s funding to double resources dedicated to connecting schools and libraries to the Internet. Schumer stated, \u201cIt\u2019s critical now more than ever that our schools keep up with advancing technology,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/b>COMCAST, TIME WARNER CABLE & US: <\/b>Last week Comcast announced it would acquire Time Warner Cable<\/a> for $45 billion in stock, a merger that may have interesting implications for consumers\u2019 choices among cable companies and the fate of net neutrality. \u00a0On the former, 75% of US homes may end up having only one cable option for fast Internet if the merger is approved.\u00a0 On the latter, Comcast agreed to uphold net neutrality only until 2018, after which time they could handle Internet content differently (throttle it or charge differently) based on its type (such as streaming video vs. static web content).\u00a0 The FCC is looking at this closely, and so are the rest of us.<\/p>\n

See you next week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help you keep up with what\u2019s going on with kids, families, schools, and technology, we\u2019ve compiled a list of stories, tips, and insights, we\u2019ve found most useful over the past week.<\/p>\n

This week: Opt-out of Location Tracking, Filters Don’t Help, Funds for Connecting Schools, What Comcast+Time Warner Means to Us<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[13,8,47,6,79,5,48,66,113,25,10,42,57,23,28,88,12,82,112,43],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-parents","category-for-teachers","tag-cell-phones","tag-digital-citizenship","tag-digital-literacy","tag-education","tag-geo-location","tag-internet-safety","tag-media-literacy","tag-mobile","tag-net-neutrality","tag-online-privacy","tag-online-safety","tag-parental-controls","tag-parents","tag-privacy","tag-right-to-privacy","tag-social-media","tag-social-networking","tag-social-networks","tag-web-filtering","tag-website-filters","wpautop"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trendmicro.com\/internet-safety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}