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S. HRG. 111–1043 

PROTECTING YOUTHS IN AN ONLINE WORLD 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, 

PRODUCT SAFETY, AND INSURANCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 15, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

( 

(II) 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman 

DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii 

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

MARK WARNER, Virginia 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas, Ranking 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

GEORGE S. LEMIEUX, Florida 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

ELLEN L. DONESKI, Staff Director 

JAMES REID, Deputy Staff Director 

BRUCE H. ANDREWS, General Counsel 

ANN BEGEMAN, Republican Staff Director 

BRIAN M. HENDRICKS, Republican General Counsel 

NICK ROSSI, Republican Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRODUCT SAFETY, AND 

INSURANCE 

MARK PRYOR, Arkansas, Chairman 

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

BILL NELSON, Florida 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi, Ranking 

OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, Maine 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 15, 2010 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Pryor .................................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Rockefeller ........................................................................... 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

Statement of Senator Wicker .................................................................................. 34 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

Statement of Senator Klobuchar ............................................................................ 37 

WITNESSES

Jessica Rich, Deputy Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade 

Commission ........................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5 

Hemanshu Nigam, Co-Chair, Online Safety Technology Working Group; Safety Advisor, News Corporation; and Founder, SSP Blue ................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Jeff Mcintyre, Director—National Policy, Children Now ..................................... 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 18 

Michelle Collins, Vice President, Exploited Children Division, The National 

Center for Missing & Exploited Children .......................................................... 19 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 21 

K. Dane Snowden, Vice President, External and State Affairs, CTIA—the 

Wireless Association  ......................................................................................... 23 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 25 

APPENDIX

Letter, dated July 15, 2010 to Chairman Mark Pryor and Ranking Member 

Roger Wicker, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and 

Insurance, U.S. Senate from Laura W. Murphy, Director, Washington Legislative Office and Michael W. Macleod-Ball, Chief Legislative and Policy 

Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union ........................................................... 57 

Yahoo!, Inc., prepared statement ........................................................................... 59 

(1) 

PROTECTING YOUTHS IN AN ONLINE WORLD 

THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRODUCT

SAFETY, AND INSURANCE, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:02 p.m. in room 

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Mark Pryor, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK PRYOR, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ARKANSAS 

Senator PRYOR. I’ll go ahead and call this hearing to order. 

And I want to thank all of our witnesses and our audience members for being here. 

We are, if you all have probably noticed, we’re kind of scurrying 

around here to figure out the schedule. As is the custom in the U.S. 

Senate, the schedule is changing rapidly, and we now have a rollcall vote that has just started on the floor. And, even though I 

think we’re going to have several members participate today, the 

rollcall vote is going to, you know, upset the smooth flow of this 

hearing. 

But, nonetheless, what I thought I would do is give a brief opening statement, and if Senator Wicker’s able to make it here before 

the vote, let him give his statement. And if he’s not able or no one 

else is able to be here, go ahead and try to get as far along as we 

can before I have to recess and go vote. And if I have a fellow subcommittee member here, we’ll just continue the hearing, but we 

may have to recess in order to get these two votes behind us. But, 

anyway, that’s just housekeeping. 

Thank you all for being here. And I really appreciate the time 

and effort that you have made to be here for our hearing on protecting youths in an online world. 

As I said, the Subcommittee members may be coming and going 

and a little bit disrupted because of the vote on the floor. But, this 

is a follow-up hearing to the children’s privacy hearing we held in 

April, and the second in a series to consider how to best protect our 

young people online. 

Young people are spending an increasing amount of time on the 

Internet. They have Internet access points in their cell phones 

through which they can now connect to social networking sites, 

play games, and use various apps. According to one reporter, approximately 83 percent of 17-year-olds and over 50 percent of 12- 

2 

year-olds now own a cell phone. Despite the valuable benefits of 

technology—and those are many—some young people can be hurt 

by this instant access. 

Researchers are seeing disturbing trends in cyberbullying and 

harassment, among other risky online behaviors, including the forwarding or sending of sexually explicit messages. According to one 

Cox Communications Teen Online Safety and Digital Reputation 

Survey, approximately one-third of teenagers using the Internet report they have been victims of online harassment. Recent press articles have highlighted injurious practices among teens who tease 

and harass their peers online, creating hurt feelings and uncomfortable learning environments. 

A recent New York Times article, entitled ‘‘Online Bullies Pull 

Schools Into the Fray,’’ underscored the pain that some middle 

school students are facing when targeted by, or bullied by, their 

peers online. The article captured the complexity surrounding this 

debate, how to teach expectations of behavior while promoting parental control and discipline, empowering educators, strengthening 

school safety, and protecting privacy concerns. 

A few years ago, one press article featured a student from Fayetteville, Arkansas, who experienced aggressive bullying both online and offline. In junior high, the student was hit so hard he lost 

consciousness. In 9th grade he was struck with so much force that 

his braces became caught on the inside of his cheek. Some of his 

classmates started a page on Facebook called ‘‘Everyone that 

hates’’ and then inserted the name of the child. 

When I hear about the psychological and emotional damage inflicted on teenagers and younger children as a result of 

cyberbullying, online harassment, or forms of exploitation online, I 

become deeply concerned, both as a father and as a lawmaker. 

Children deserve to learn in peace and safety. I believe that is one 

basic premise upon which we all should be able to agree. 

I look forward to hearing from the Federal Trade Commission 

about how its education campaign for online socializing is working, 

whether improvements can be made, and how we can create solutions together to strengthen the online safety and security of our 

Nation’s children. 

I also look forward to hearing from the witnesses about the 

greatest threats to minors’ safety in the online space, strategies to 

mitigate them, suggestions for promoting safe use of digital media, 

and how the FTC could work with other groups or schools to encourage safe navigation of online sites to better defend against 

risks to their mental health and well-being. 

It is critical that we work together to determine how to integrate 

the research of our online media and technology experts, our public, private, and law enforcement officials, and agencies’ staff the— 

at the Federal Trade Commission to craft meaningful and effective 

policies to better protect our young people against threats on the 

Internet. 

So, what I’d like to do now is go ahead and introduce our panels 

here and get as far along as possible with their opening statements. And again, I may have to recess at some point during the— 

you know, during the middle of the panel opening statements. 

3 

But, I’ll go ahead and just very briefly say—let’s see, in order we 

have, Ms. Jessica Rich, Deputy Director of Bureau of Consumer 

Protection, Federal Trade Commission; Mr. Hemanshu Nigam, 

Safety Advisor, News Corporation, and Founder of SSP Blue, and 

former Chief Safety and Security Officer for MySpace; Mr. Jeff 

McIntyre, Director of National Policy for Children Now; Ms. 

Michelle Collins, Vice President, Exploited Children Division, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children; and Mr. K. Dane 

Snowden, Vice President, External and State Affairs, CTIA—The 

Wireless Association. 

Ms. Rich, would you mind leading us off? 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA RICH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU 

OF CONSUMER PROTECTION, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 

Ms. RICH. Chairman Pryor, my name is Jessica Rich, Deputy Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection with the Federal 

Trade Commission. 

And there I am. I’m on. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. RICH. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the Commission’s efforts to protect the privacy and security of teens in the digital environment. While the views expressed in this written testimony represent the views of the Commission, my oral testimony 

and responses to questions are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission or any commissioner. 

The Federal Trade Commission is committed to protecting teens 

as they use and explore the online world. Today, I’ll talk about the 

FTC’s efforts to educate teens and parents about cybersafety, enforce the privacy laws, and develop policy approaches to make the 

digital world safer for all consumers, including teens. 

Parents of teens won’t be surprised to learn that more teens go 

online than any other age group, over 90 percent. Teens have 

earned the nickname ‘‘digital natives,’’ since they use the Internet 

so much to socialize with their peers, learn about topics that interest them, and express themselves. Teens avidly communicate using 

instant message and social networks, share music and photos on 

P2P networks, and use smart phones to text, watch videos, and 

surf the web. 

Despite the many positives, teens may be less able to handle 

some challenges online than adults. For example, teens may not always think about the consequences of their actions, so they may 

post personal details online without thinking that it could leave 

them vulnerable to identity theft or cost them a job if a future employer sees it. And problems, once limited to the school hallway or 

the bus stop, like bullying and harassment, now spill into the online world. 

So, what’s the FTC doing? First, we educate teens and parents 

about online threats and how to avoid them. The Commission’s online safety portal, onguardonline.gov, helps consumers of all ages 

use the Internet safely and responsibly. Our new booklet, titled 

‘‘Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online,’’ provides 

practical tips on how parents, teachers, and other trusted adults 

can talk to kids about issues like cyberbullying, sexting, social networking, mobile phone use, and online privacy. We’ve already disVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
4 

tributed more than 3.7 million copies of Net Cetera with partners, 

including school districts and individual schools, and we are actively working to expand the reach of these efforts. 

Second, the Commission aggressively enforces existing laws to 

protect consumers’ privacy. Let me highlight just a couple of areas 

affecting teens: social networks and peer-to-peer file sharing. 

About three in four American teens now use social networking 

sites, nearly half on a daily basis. Since social networking exploded 

on the youth scene, the Commission has brought a number of enforcement actions against these sites. For example, just 2 weeks 

ago the Commission announced a consent order against Twitter, 

settling charges that it falsely represented that it maintain reasonable security and would take reasonable steps to ensure that private tweets remain private. 

In addition, many teens use P2P file sharing to share music, 

games, and software online. P2P programs present privacy and security risks because people may inadvertently allow others to copy 

private files they never intended to share. The Commission recently sent letters notifying several dozen entities that their customer information had been exposed on P2P file-sharing networks. 

We also sent them educational materials to help them secure their 

confidential data and opened nonpublic investigations into the most 

serious cases. 

Third, we’re exploring policy approaches that would help all consumers preserve their privacy in commercial settings, including 

teens. For example, we’ve been gathering information about social 

networking as part of a recently concluded series of public 

roundtables examining ways to foster privacy protections in the Information Age. Participants discussed the difficulty of defining consumer expectations on social working—networking sites, as well as 

issues related to data collection by numerous third-party applications operating at those sites. 

Mobile space is another key area. As the Chairman mentioned, 

a recent study found that 58 percent of 12-year-olds and 83 percent 

of 17-year-olds own a cell phone. And an increasing number of 

teens own more sophisticated smart phones. These devices collect 

and store information from teens, and host all sorts of third-party 

applications which do the same. The increasing use of smart 

phones and similar devices was one of the main reasons we decided 

to accelerate our review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection 

Act. 

Before I conclude, let me address the scope of COPPA. As you 

know, some have suggested that COPPA should be extended to 

teens. COPPA requires websites and online services to obtain parental consent prior to the collection, use, or disclosure of personal 

information from children. When drafting COPPA, Congress decided to define ‘‘child’’ as under age 13, largely on the basis that 

most young children don’t possess adequate knowledge or judgment 

to decide if and when to divulge personal information online. 

This reasoning does not necessarily extend to adolescents, who 

have greater access to the Internet outside the home than younger 

children. Teens may also be less likely than young children to provide their true age or their parents’ contact information. And as 

children approach adulthood and use general-audience websites, it 

5 

1While the views expressed in this statement represent the views of the Commission, my oral 

presentation and responses to questions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views 

of the Commission or any individual Commissioner. 2 Amanda Lenhart, Mary Madden, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, & Aaron Smith, Pew Internet 

& American Life Project, Teens and Social Media (Dec. 19, 2007), available at www.pewinter 

net.org/∼/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIPlTeenslSociallMedialFinal.pdf.pdf. 3See Amanda Lenhart & Mary Madden, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Social Networking Websites and Teens (Jan. 2007), available at www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Social-Networking-Websites-and-Teens/Data-Memo/Moredetails-from-the-survey.aspx?r=1. 4See Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds (Jan. 

2010), available at www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf. 5See Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, & Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Internet & 

American Life Project, Social Media and Young Adults (Feb. 2010), available at www.pewinter 

net.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx?r=1. 6See, e.g., Transcript of Exploring Privacy, A Roundtable Series (Mar. 17, 2010), Panel 3: Addressing Sensitive Information, available at htc–01.media.globix.net/COMP008760MOD1/ 

ftclweb/transcripts/031710lsess3.pdf; Chris Hoofnagle, Jennifer King, Su Li, and Joseph 

Turow, How Different Are Young Adults from Older Adults When It Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes & Policies? (April 14, 2010), available at ssrn.com/abstract=1589864. 

becomes more difficult to craft laws that don’t unduly restrict free 

speech. 

That being said, we are very happy to work with the Committee 

if it determines to enact legislation providing special protections for 

teens online. We’ll also continue our efforts to educate teens and 

their parents and develop policy recommendations to protect all 

consumers, including teens. 

In conclusion, the Commission is committed to protecting all consumers in the digital environment, especially those, such as teens, 

who are particularly vulnerable to threats on the Internet. 

Thank you. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rich follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JESSICA RICH, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF CONSUMER PROTECTION, FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

I. Introduction 

Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the Subcommittee, 

my name is Jessica Rich and I am the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Consumer 

Protection at the Federal Trade Commission (‘‘FTC’’ or ‘‘Commission’’).1 I appreciate 

this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Commission’s efforts to 

protect the privacy and security of teens in the digital environment. 

The Federal Trade Commission is committed to protecting teens as they navigate 

digital technologies and applications. The agency has actively engaged in education, 

law enforcement, and policy efforts to help make the digital world safer for all consumers, including teens. 

This testimony first highlights some of the privacy and safety risks teens face as 

they participate in the digital world. Second, it summarizes the Commission’s efforts 

to educate teens and their parents about these risks. Third, it highlights the Commission’s efforts to protect privacy in the context of technologies used heavily by 

teens in particular—social networking, mobile computing, and peer-to-peer (‘‘P2P’’) 

file-sharing programs. Finally, the testimony addresses proposals to create separate 

privacy protections for teens online. 

II. Teens in the Digital Environment 

Teens are heavy users of digital technology and new media applications including 

social networking, mobile devices, instant messaging, and file-sharing. Indeed, a 

2007 study found that over 90 percent of kids between the ages of 12 and 17 spend 

time online.2 The online world has changed how teens learn, socialize, and are entertained. In many ways, the experiences teens have online are positive—they use 

the Internet to socialize with their peers,3 to learn more about topics that interest 

them,4 and to express themselves.5

But teens also face unique challenges online. For example, research shows that 

teens tend to be more impulsive than adults and that they may not think as clearly 

as adults about the consequences of what they do.6 As a result, they may voluntarily 

disclose more information online than they should. On social networking sites, 

young people may share personal details that leave them vulnerable to identity 

6 

7See Javelin Strategy and Research, 2010 Identity Fraud Survey Report (Feb. 2010), available 

at www.javelinstrategy.com/uploads/files/1004.Rl2010IdentityFraudSurveyConsumer.pdf. 8See e.g., Commonsense Media, Is Social Networking Changing Childhood? A National Poll 

(Aug. 10, 2009), available at www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/CSMlteenlsocial 

lmedial080609lFINAL.pdf (indicating that 28 percent of teens have shared personal information online that they would not normally share publicly) . 9Press Release, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Teens and Sexting (Dec. 15, 2009), 

available at www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2009/Teens-and-Sexting.aspx. 10 Amanda Lenhart, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Cyberbullying and Online Teens 

(June 27, 2007), available at www.pewinternet.org/∼/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIP%20Cyber 

bullying%20Memo.pdf.pdf. 11 Amanda Lenhart and Mary Madden, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Teens, Privacy, 

and Online Social Networks (Apr. 18, 2007), available at www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/ 

Teens-Privacy-and-Online-Social-Networks.aspx?r=1. 12The OnGuardOnline.gov website is the central component of the OnGuardOnline consumer 

education campaign, a partnership of the Federal Government and the technology community. 

Currently, 13 Federal agencies and a large number of safety organizations are partners on the 

website, contributing content and helping to promote and disseminate consistent messages. 

Since the launch of OnGuardOnline.gov and its Spanish-language counterpart AlertaenLı ́nea.gov 

in September 2005, more than 12 million visitors have used these sites for information about 

computer security. 13 Net Cetera is available online at www.onguardonline.gov/pdf/tec04.pdf. 

theft.7 They may also share details that could adversely affect their potential employment or college admissions.8 Teens also sometimes ‘‘sext’’ to their peers—send 

text messages and images with sexual content—without considering the potential 

legal consequences and harm to their reputations. According to one recent study, 4 

percent of cell phone owners aged 12 to 17 have sent sexually suggestive images 

of themselves by phone, while 15 percent have received ‘‘sexts’’ containing images 

of someone they know.9 In addition, bullies or predators—most often teens’ own 

peers—may try to take advantage of adolescents on the Internet. About one-third 

of all teens online have reported experiencing some kind of online harassment, including cyberbullying.10

Despite teens’ sharing and use of personal information in the digital world, there 

is data that suggests teens are concerned about their online privacy. For example, 

one study of teens and privacy found that teens engage in a variety of techniques 

to obscure or conceal their real location or personal details on social networking 

sites.11 The Commission seeks to address these privacy concerns—as well as parents’ concerns about their teens’ online behavior and interactions—through education, policy development, and law enforcement, as discussed further below. 

III. Consumer Education 

The FTC has launched a number of education initiatives designed to encourage 

consumers of all ages to use the Internet safely and responsibly. The Commission’s 

online safety portal, OnGuardOnline.gov, developed in partnership with other Federal agencies, provides practical information in a variety of formats—including articles, game, quizzes, and videos—to help people guard against Internet fraud, secure 

their computers, and protect their personal information.12 The Commission’s booklet, Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online,13 is the most recent addition to the OnGuardOnline.gov consumer education campaign. This guide provides 

practical tips on how parents, teachers, and other trusted adults can help children 

of all ages, including teens and pre-teens, reduce the risks of inappropriate conduct, 

contact, and content that come with living life online. 

Net Cetera focuses on the importance of communicating with children about issues 

ranging from cyberbullying to sexting, social networking, mobile phone use, and online privacy. It provides specific advice to parents about talking to their children 

about each of these topics. For example, on the subject of sexting, it discusses the 

risks sexting poses to kids’ reputations and friendships—as well as possible legal 

consequences if kids create, forward, or save these kinds of messages—and gives 

parents straightforward advice: ‘‘Tell your kids not to do it.’’ With respect to 

cyberbullying, Net Cetera advises parents to talk with their kids about online behavior and about any messages or images that make them feel threatened or hurt. The 

guide advises parents to work with a child who is being bullied by helping them 

to not react, save the evidence, and block or delete the bully. 

The Commission has partnered with schools, community groups, and local law enforcement to publicize Net Cetera, and the agency has distributed more than 3.7 million copies of the guide since it was introduced in October 2009. The FTC will continue to work with other Federal agencies, state departments of education, school 

districts, and individual schools to distribute Net Cetera and OnGuardOnline.gov to 

parents and educators. Additionally, the FTC plans to reach out to other groups that 

7 

14Youth Safety on a Living Internet: Report of the Online Safety and Technology Working 

Group (June 4, 2010), available at www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2010/OSTWGlFinallReport l060410.pdf. 15See Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith, & Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Internet & 

American Life Project, Social Media and Young Adults (Feb. 2010), available at 

www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx?r=1. 16See Amanda Lenhart & Mary Madden, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Social Networking Websites and Teens (Jan. 2007), available at www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Social-Networking-Websites-and-Teens/Data-Memo/Moredetails-from-the-survey.aspx?r=1..52. 17See Amanda Lenhart, Mary Madden, Alexandra Rankin Macgill, & Aaron Smith, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Teens and Social Media (Dec. 19, 2007), available at www.pew 

internet.org/∼/media//Files/Reports/2007/PIPlTeenslSociallMedialFinal.pdf.pdf. 18 In re Twitter, FTC File No. 092 3093 (June 24, 2010) (approved for public comment), available at www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/06/twitter.shtm. 19 United States v. Xanga.com, Inc., No. 06–CIV–6853(SHS) (S.D.N.Y.) (final order Sept. 11, 

2006); United States v. Industrious Kid, Inc., No. 08–CV–0639 (N.D. Cal.) (final order Mar. 6, 

2008); United States v. Sony BMG Music Entm’t, No. 08–CV–10730 (S.D.N.Y.) (final order Dec. 

15, 2008); United States v. Iconix Brand Group, Inc., No. 09–CV–8864 (S.D.N.Y.) (final order 

Nov. 5, 2009). 20More information about the Privacy Roundtables can be found at www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/privacyroundtables/index.shtml. 21Several key concepts emerged from the roundtable discussions. First, participants stated 

that data collection and use practices should be more transparent by, for example, simplifying 

privacy disclosures so that consumers can compare them. Second, participants said that it 

Continued 

work with kids, such as summer camps, state education technology associations, and 

scouting organizations to publicize these materials. 

In furtherance of the FTC’s education efforts, Commission staff also participated 

in the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), a working group 

composed of private sector members and Federal agencies. OSTWG reported its 

findings about youth safety on the Internet to Congress on June 4, 2010.14 Among 

its tasks, OSTWG reviewed and evaluated the status of industry efforts to promote 

online safety through educational efforts, parental control technology, blocking and 

filtering software, and age-appropriate labels for content. With respect to Internet 

safety education, OSTWG recommended greater interagency cooperation, publicity, 

and public-private sector cooperation for projects such as OnGuardOnline and Net 

Cetera to improve their national uptake in schools and local communities. As described above, the FTC is actively working to expand the reach of the already successful OnGuardOnline and Net Cetera projects. 

IV. Social Networking, Mobile Computing, and P2P 

In addition to education efforts to improve teen privacy, the Commission is also 

focused on specific technologies of which teens are particularly high users—social 

networking, mobile computing, and P2P file-sharing. 

A. Social Networking 

Social networking is pervasive among teens: 73 percent of American teens aged 

12 to 17 now use social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, up from 

55 percent 2 years ago.15 Nearly half of teens use these sites on a daily basis to 

interact with their friends.16 Teens use social networking to send messages to 

friends, post comments, and share photos and videos.17

The Commission has sought to protect teenage and other consumers in this environment through law enforcement, research, and education. It has brought a number of enforcement actions against social networking sites since 2006, when social 

networking exploded on the youth scene. Most recently, the Commission announced 

a consent order against Twitter, Inc. settling charges that it falsely represented to 

consumers that it would maintain reasonable security of its system and that it 

would take reasonable steps to ensure that private tweets remain private. Under 

the order, Twitter has agreed to maintain reasonable security and to obtain independent audits of its security procedures every 2 years for 10 years.18 The Commission also has brought actions against several social networking sites that targeted 

youth but failed to adhere to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 

(‘‘COPPA’’) with respect to users under the age of 13.19 The Commission will continue to examine the practices of social networking sites and bring enforcement actions when appropriate. 

In addition to its enforcement work, the Commission has been gathering information about social networking as part of a recently-concluded series of public 

roundtables on consumer privacy.20 The goal of the roundtables was to explore how 

best to protect consumer privacy without curtailing technological innovation and 

beneficial uses of information.21 Participants at the roundtables repeatedly raised 

8 

should be easier for consumers to exercise choice. For example, rather than burying important 

choices in a lengthy privacy policy, such choices should be presented at the most relevant time— 

e.g., the point of information collection or use. Further, it may not be necessary to provide choice 

about uses of data that are implicit or expected as part of a transaction—for example, sharing 

address information with a shipping company to send a product that the consumer has requested. Finally, participants noted that companies should build basic privacy protections into 

their systems at the outset by, for example, collecting and retaining information only if they 

have a business need to do so. The Commission is taking these basic principles into account 

as it develops privacy proposals to be released for comment later this year. 22 In addition to the information presented at the roundtables, the Commission received over 

100 submissions in response to its request for written comments or original research on privacy, 

available at www.ftc.gov/os/comments/privacyroundtable/index.shtm. 23 Amanda Lenhart, Rich Ling, Scott Campbell, Kristen Purcell, Pew Internet & American 

Life Project, Teens and Mobile Phones (Apr. 20, 2010), available at www.pewinternet.org/∼/ 

media//Files/Reports/2010/PIP-Teens-and-Mobile–2010.pdf. 24 Id. 25 Nielsen, How Teens Use Media (June 2009), available at blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/reports/nielsenlhowteensusemedialjune09.pdf. 26 Under the rulemaking authority granted to it by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection 

Act of 1998 (‘‘COPPA’’), the FTC promulgated the COPPA Rule, 16 CFR Part 312, in 1999. 

issues related to social networking, and a specific panel was devoted to the subject. 

Experts on this panel discussed the difficulty of defining consumer expectations on 

social networking sites, issues related to third-party applications that use data from 

social networking sites, and the effectiveness of privacy disclosures and privacy settings in the social networking space. 

The Commission is reviewing the information it received as part of the roundtable 

series and drafting initial privacy proposals, which it will release for public comment later this year.22 The Commission will consider the information it obtained 

about social networking as it makes its recommendations. 

B. Mobile Technology 

Teens’ use of mobile devices is increasing rapidly—in 2004, 45 percent of teens 

aged 12 to 17 had a cell phone; by 2009, that figure jumped to 75 percent.23 Many 

teens are using their phones not just for calling or texting, but increasingly for applications like e-mailing and web browsing, including accessing social networking 

sites and making online purchases.24 They are also using relatively new mobile applications that raise unique privacy concerns, such as location-based tracking.25

The FTC has been actively addressing privacy issues relating to mobile technology 

for several years. In 2008, the Commission held a Town Hall meeting to explore the 

evolving mobile marketplace and its implications for consumer protection policy. 

Participants in the meeting examined topics such as consumers’ ability to control 

mobile applications and mobile commerce practices targeting children and teens. In 

April 2009, FTC staff issued a report setting out key findings and recommendations 

based on the Town Hall meeting. Having highlighted that the increasing use of 

smartphones presents unique privacy challenges regarding children, the Town Hall 

meeting led to an expedited regulatory review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule.26 The review is taking place this year, even though it was originally 

set for 2015. 

More recently, the privacy roundtable discussions devoted a panel to addressing 

the privacy implications of mobile computing. This panel focused on two significant 

issues: the extent to which location-based services were proliferating in an environment without any basic rules or standards, and the degree to which transparency 

of information sharing practices is possible on mobile devices. As with social networking, the Commission staff’s upcoming report on the privacy roundtables will 

further address these issues. 

In addition to these policy initiatives, the FTC is ensuring that it has the tools 

necessary to respond to the growth of mobile commerce and conduct mobile-related 

investigations. In the past month, the FTC has expanded its Internet lab to include 

smartphone devices on various platforms and carriers. The Commission also has obtained the equipment necessary to collect and preserve evidence from these mobile 

devices. With these smartphones, FTC staff can now improve its monitoring of unfair and deceptive practices in the mobile marketplace, conduct research and investigations into a wide range of issues, and stay abreast of the issues affecting teens 

and all consumers. 

C. P2P File-Sharing 

P2P file-sharing allows people to share their files through an informal network 

of computers running the same software. Teens use P2P programs to share music, 

games, or software online. However, P2P file-sharing presents privacy and security 

9 

27FTC Press Release, Widespread Data Breaches Uncovered by FTC Probe, (Feb. 22, 2010), 

available at www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/02/p2palert.shtm. 28These materials are available at www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/idtheft/bus46.shtm. 29FTC Press Release, supra note 27. 30The consumer alert is available at www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt128 

.shtm. 31FTC v. Cashier Myricks Jr., Civ. No. CV05–7013–CAS (FMOx) (C.D. Cal., filed Sep. 27, 

2005) (suit against the operator of the website MP3DownloadCity.com for making allegedly deceptive claims that it was ‘‘100 percent LEGAL’’ for consumers to use the file-sharing programs 

he promoted to download and share music, movies, and computer games); FTC v. Odysseus Marketing, Inc., Civ. No. 05–330 (D.N.H., filed Sep. 21, 2005) (suit against website operator that 

encouraged consumers to download free software falsely marketed as allowing consumers to engage in anonymous P2P file-sharing). 32See Hearing: an Examination of Children’s Privacy: New Technologies and the Children’s 

Online Privacy Protection, Prepared Statement of Professor Kathryn Montgomery Before the 

Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. Senate (Apr. 29, 2010), available at www.demo 

craticmedia.org/files/u1/2010-04-28-montgomerytestimony.pdf; see also An Examination of Children’s Privacy: New Technologies and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 

Prepared Statement of Marc Rotenberg, EPIC.org, available at epic.org/privacy/kids/EPIC lCOPPAlTestimonyl042910.pdf. 

risks because consumers may unknowingly allow others to copy private files they 

never intended to share. The FTC has sought to address these risks in several ways. 

First, the Commission has undertaken an initiative targeting businesses that use 

or allow P2P programs on their networks without implementing reasonable safeguards to protect their customers’ information from inadvertent disclosure through 

these programs. This customer information can be leaked onto a P2P network when, 

for example, an employee downloads a P2P program directly onto his or her work 

computer, or when a business chooses to utilize P2P file-sharing programs, but does 

not configure its network correctly to protect such information. 

To address this problem, the Commission recently sent letters notifying several 

dozen public and private entities—including businesses, schools, and local governments—that customer information from their computers had been made available 

on P2P file-sharing networks.27 In the notification letters, the FTC urged the entities to review their security practices, explained that they should take steps to control the use of P2P software on their networks, and shared new business education 

materials designed to help them protect their confidential data from inadvertent 

sharing to a P2P network.28 Many entities that received these notifications contacted FTC staff for additional information to aid in their investigations into the 

file-sharing incidents, and a number reported making changes to their security practices to prevent inadvertent file-sharing to P2P networks. At the same time it sent 

the notification letters, the FTC opened non-public investigations into other companies whose customer or employee information had been exposed on P2P networks.29

FTC staff has also assisted P2P file-sharing software developers in devising best 

practices to help prevent consumers from inadvertently sharing personal or sensitive data over P2P networks. In July 2008, the Distributed Computer Industry Association published voluntary best practices to guard against inadvertent file sharing. With the assistance of an independent P2P technology expert, FTC staff have 

been assessing whether members are complying with these best practices. 

The FTC also seeks to educate consumers about the risks of P2P file sharing software. Among other things, the agency provides tips for consumers about P2P in a 

consumer alert entitled ‘‘P2P File-Sharing: Evaluate the Risks,’’ 30 which is available 

through OnGuardOnline.gov, and in Net Cetera. 

Finally, the FTC has brought enforcement actions alleging that certain P2P file 

sharing software providers made deceptive claims in connection with the marketing 

of their products.31

V. Privacy Models and Teens 

The issues surrounding teens’ use of digital technology raise the question whether 

there should be special privacy protections for them. Some have suggested that 

COPPA’s protections be extended to cover adolescents between the ages of 13 and 

18; others suggest that separate privacy protections should be established for 

teens.32

The COPPA statute and implementing regulations enforced by the FTC require 

operators to provide notice to, and receive consent from, parents of children under 

age 13 prior to the collection, use, or disclosure of such children’s personal information on websites or online services. In the course of drafting COPPA, Congress 

looked closely at whether adolescents should be covered by the law, ultimately deciding to define a ‘‘child’’ as an individual under age 13. This decision was based 

10 

33See Testimony of the Federal Trade Commission Before the Subcommittee on Communications, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (Sept. 23, 1998), available 

at www.ftc.gov/os/1998/09/priva998.htm. 34See, e.g., American Amusement Mach. Ass’n. v. Kendrick, 244 F.3d 572 (7th Cir. 2001) (citing Erznoznik v. city of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 212–14 (1975); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U.S. 503, 511–14 (1969). 35See ACLU v. Ashcroft, 534 F.3d 181, 196 (3d Cir. 2008) (citing ACLU v. Gonzales, 478 F. 

Supp. 2d 775, 806 (E.D. Pa. 2007) (‘‘Requiring users to go through an age verification process 

would lead to a distinct loss of personal privacy.’’)); see also Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prods. Corp., 

463 U.S. 60, 73 (1983) (citing Butler v. Michigan, 352 U.S. 380, 383 (1957) (‘‘The Government 

may not reduce the adult population . . . to reading only what is fit for children.’’)). 

in part on the view that most young children do not possess the level of knowledge 

or judgment to make appropriate determinations about when and if to divulge personal information over the Internet. The FTC supported this assessment.33

While this parental notice and consent model works fairly well for young children, 

the Commission is concerned that it may be less effective or appropriate for adolescents. COPPA relies on children providing operators with parental contact information at the outset to initiate the consent process. The COPPA model would be difficult to implement for teens, as they have greater access to the Internet outside 

of the home than young children do, such as in libraries, friends’ houses, or mobile 

devices. Teens seeking to bypass the parental notification and consent requirements 

may also be less likely than young children to provide accurate information about 

their age or their parents’ contact information. In addition, courts have recognized 

that as children age, they have an increased constitutional right to access information and express themselves publicly.34 Moreover, given that teens are more likely 

than young children to spend a greater proportion of their time online on websites 

that also appeal to adults, the practical difficulties in expanding COPPA’s reach to 

adolescents might unintentionally burden the right of adults to engage in online 

speech.35

The Commission will continue to evaluate how best to protect teens in the digital 

environment and take appropriate steps to do so. In specific instances, there may 

be opportunities for law enforcement or advocacy in this area. For example, just this 

week, the Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection sent a letter to individual 

stakeholders in XY corporation, which operated a now-defunct magazine and 

website directed to gay male youth. The letter expressed concern about these individuals’ efforts to obtain and use old subscriber lists and other highly sensitive information—including names, street addresses, personal photos, and bank account 

information from gay teens. The letter warns that selling, transferring, or using this 

information would be inconsistent with the privacy promises made to the subscribers, and may violate the FTC Act; thus, the letter urges that the data be destroyed. 

More generally, the FTC believes that its upcoming privacy recommendations 

based on its roundtable discussions will greatly benefit teens. The Commission expects that the privacy proposals emerging from this initiative will provide teens 

both a greater understanding of how their data is used and a greater ability to control such data. Finally, the Commission is available to work with this committee, 

if it determines to enact legislation mandating special protections for teens. 

VI. Conclusion 

The Commission is committed to protecting all consumers in the digital environment, especially those consumers, such as teens, who are particularly vulnerable to 

threats on the Internet. The FTC will continue to act aggressively to protect teens 

through education, law enforcement, and policy initiatives that will better enable 

teens to control their information online. 

Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the privacy and security of teens on the 

Internet. I look forward to your questions. 

Senator PRYOR. And thank you. 

At this point, since I just have a couple of minutes left in the 

rollcall, I will recess the hearing, and we’ll reconvene when—hopefully, I’ll be back in just 10 minutes or so. I mean—but, as soon 

as one of us gets back, we’ll reconvene the hearing, and we’ll hear 

from the rest of the panel. 

And look forward to that. And thank you, again. 

[Recess.] 

Senator PRYOR. I’ll go ahead and reconvene the Subcommittee. 

11 

Again, thank you all for your patience. We had two votes. And 

I talked to at least a couple of my colleagues that said they’re heading over here, maybe more. But, if we can, let’s go ahead and pick 

up with where we were. 

And, Mr. Nigam, go ahead, please. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF HEMANSHU NIGAM, CO-CHAIR, ONLINE 

SAFETY TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP; SAFETY ADVISOR, 

NEWS CORPORATION; AND FOUNDER, SSP BLUE 

Mr. NIGAM. Chairman Pryor, thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today on the best ways that we can, collectively, protect youth online. 

My name’s Hemanshu Nigam, and I bring over 20 years of experience in the safety worlds in the online and offline sites. I’m the 

Founder of SSP Blue, a safety, security, and privacy strategic consulting business, and a board member of the National Center for 

Missing and Exploited Children. I’m also a News Corporation Safety Advisor, having previously been MySpace’s Chief Security and 

Safety Officer. Before News, I led Microsoft’s child safety and 

cyberenforcement teams, and, prior to that, was Vice President of 

Worldwide Internet Enforcement at MPAA. I have also served as 

a Department of Justice prosecutor against Internet child exploitation and computer crimes, advised the COPA Commission and 

advised the White House on cyberstalking. Finally, I began my career as a prosecutor in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s 

Office, where I specialized in prosecuting child molestation and sex 

crime cases. 

And so, I speak to you from various perspectives in the private 

sector, in government, and law enforcement. As Co-Chair of the 

Online Safety Technology Working Group, I led the review and 

evaluation of industry efforts in four key areas: online safety, education, and awareness; reporting of child pornography; data retention; and online safety technologies. The OSTWG had representatives from nearly every facet of the online safety—child safety ecosystem who brought more than 250 years of experience to the 

table. 

Our goal is to find holistic solutions to what is a multidimensional challenge. We built upon the teachings of previous online 

safety task forces that have occurred over the past 10 years by inviting experts to inform our subcommittees on the latest online 

safety developments. From the breadth and depth of the 39 recommendations—in case you were wondering how many there actually were—from the breadth and depth of the 39 recommendations 

we make in our report, ‘‘Youth Safety in a Living Internet,’’ I think 

we succeeded in meeting our goal. 

And before I share some of these recommendations, I’d like to 

talk about one concept that became quite clear. As we state in the 

report, the Internet is a living thing that constantly mirrors our society, our lives, and our publications. And, as such, we have to 

treat safety online in much the same way as we treat safety offline. 

And just as it takes a village to raise a child in the physical world, 

it takes the same village to raise a child in the online world. And 

given its dynamic nature, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and 

no silver bullet, just like in the physical world. Not surprisingly, 

12 

our children seem to know how our offline and online worlds are 

intertwined far better than we adults do. 

And it is with full recognition of this living Internet that we 

make our recommendations to you. And here is just a sampling: 

The Subcommittee on Internet Safety Education recommended 

that an online research database be created and better coordination 

of the multitude of Federal Government educational efforts be 

done. 

The Subcommittee on Parental Controls and Child Protection 

Technology recommended that a common set of terms be created to 

help parents understand the various tools better, and that these 

technologies be baked into online products, where possible. 

The Subcommittee on Child Pornography Reporting recommended that smaller service providers be helped by the larger 

industry, folks like ourselves, to get them to comply with reporting 

requirements. This subcommittee also recommended tax credits for 

industry to offset the high development costs of reporting. 

Finally, the Subcommittee on Data Retention recommended that 

the discourse about data retention be held at the Federal level and 

that Congress take a closer look at data preservation before considering mandatory data retention. 

And, just as we observed that the Internet had evolved from 

merely a technical tool to a reflection of our living society, we also 

became markedly aware of two important areas that require congressional action: 

First, create a cross-functional, cross-agency coordinating body, 

led by the government, that includes members from every sector of 

the child safety ecosystem, to build consensus and coordinate education efforts. 

Second, enact legislation that would require a review of all the 

online safety-related programs the Federal Government has already undertaken in order to evaluate their effectiveness. 

We in the industry must be a critical part of solutions, as well. 

Having led safety efforts at MySpace, I’d like to offer you examples 

of just how the industry should take a holistic approach to online 

safety by building programs that consist of safety technologies, education, collaboration, and enforcement. 

As builders of technological platforms, MySpace provides both 

front-end user tools and back-end member protections. We give 

users the ability to block other users to reduce incidents of 

cyberbullying. We also review images to keep out unwanted content. 

Technical solutions must be coupled with educational programs 

that raise awareness about safety online. MySpace has distributed 

safety guides to over 55,000 schools in this country, and has an informative safety section on its site for all visitors. 

The industry must also collaborate with child safety experts. And 

we’ve partnered with leading child advocacy organizations in the 

country, like the National Center. These partnerships have been 

used to protect children, assist in recovering runaways, and preventing suicides. 

At the end of the day, as you know, Mr. Chairman, as former Attorney General of Arkansas, illegal incidents can and do occur; 

13 

thus, we work closely with law enforcement—24 hours, 7 days a 

week—to help ensure the safety of our users. 

And speaking more broadly, and as I close, Congress also has a 

critical role to play in protecting children online: 

First, we ask that you convene the experts. Today’s hearing is a 

great example of a place where we can identify problems and cutting-edge solutions. 

Second, educate the masses. The more we can implement educational programs at every level of our education system, the 

healthier our citizens will be online. 

And third, fund online safety programs. A solution, without proper funding is, frankly, no solution at all. 

So, thank you, Chairman Pryor, Chairman Rockefeller, and 

Ranking Member Wicker, for giving me this opportunity to address 

you on this important topic. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nigam follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HEMANSHU NIGAM, CO-CHAIR, ONLINE SAFETY

TECHNOLOGY WORKING GROUP; SAFETY ADVISOR, NEWS CORPORATION; AND

FOUNDER, SSP BLUE

Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the Subcommittee, 

thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today on the best ways that 

we can collectively protect youth online. I bring with me over 20 years of experience 

in safety in the online and offline worlds. I am the Founder of SSP Blue, a safety, 

security, and privacy strategic consulting firm for online businesses. I am also News 

Corporation’s Safety Advisor, having previously served as News Corporation and 

MySpace’s Chief Security Officer from the birth of social media. Before coming to 

News Corporation, I set in motion a cross-company strategy for child safe computing 

and led a cyber enforcement team at Microsoft Corporation. And prior to that, I was 

Vice President of Worldwide Internet Enforcement against digital movie piracy at 

the Motion Picture Association of America. I have also served as a Federal prosecutor against Internet child exploitation and computer crimes at the U.S. Department of Justice, an advisor to the COPA Commission, and an advisor to the White 

House’s Committee on Cyberstalking. Finally, I began my career as a prosecutor in 

the LA County District Attorney’s office, specializing in child molestation and sex 

crimes cases. And so, I speak to you from various perspectives in private industry, 

government, and law enforcement. 

As co-chair of the Online Safety Technology Working Group, I had the honor of 

leading the mandate to review and evaluate: 

1. The status of industry efforts to promote online safety through educational 

efforts, parental control technology, blocking and filtering software, age-appropriate labels for content or other technologies or initiatives designed to promote 

a safe online environment for children; 

2. The status of industry efforts to promote online safety among providers of 

electronic communications services and remote computing services by reporting 

apparent child pornography, including any obstacles to such reporting; 

3. The practices of electronic communications service providers and remote computing service providers related to record retention in connection with crimes 

against children; and 

4. The development of technologies to help parents shield their children from 

inappropriate material on the Internet. 

The OSTWG had representatives from nearly every facet of the child online safety 

ecosystem totaling more than 250 years of experience in online safety. Members 

were appointed from the Internet industry, child safety advocacy organizations, educational and civil liberties communities, the government, and law enforcement communities. 

In order to best identify the best solutions for protecting youth online, the 

OSTWG quickly created four subcommittees to focus on each area we were asked 

to evaluate. These subcommittees were chaired as follows: Lawrence J. Magid of 

Connect Safely led the Education subcommittee; Michael W. McKeehan of Verizon 

led the Data Retention subcommittee; Christopher G. Bubb of AOL led the Child 

14 

Pornography Reporting subcommittee; and Adam Thierer of the Progress and Freedom Foundation led the Technology subcommittee. Given the deadline of providing 

a report to Congress within 1 year of the first meeting, we set and followed a very 

strict timeline that began with an introductory meeting on June 4, 2009. We then 

held meetings at which each subcommittee invited experts to provide valuable insights to inform the work of that particular subcommittee. Each subcommittee meeting also began with a special guest who provided context for the day. 

Our goal was to provide holistic solutions to the multidimensional challenge of 

protecting youth online. This was accomplished by building upon the teachings of 

three task force reports issued over the prior 10 years—the COPA Commission report, the ‘‘Thornburgh report,’’ and the Harvard University Berkman Center Internet Safety and Technical Task Force report—and hearing from every aspect of the 

child safety ecosystem. From the breadth and depth of the 39 recommendations we 

made in our report, ‘‘Youth Safety on a Living Internet,’’ I think we succeeded in 

meeting our goal. 

Before I share these specific recommendations, I want to share one concept that 

became quite clear as a result of this engaging process. As we say in the first line 

of the report, the Internet is a living thing that reflects at any given moment in 

time our humanity’s lives, sociality, publications and productions. It is very much 

a part of our lives and similarly our lives are very much a part of it. As such, users 

online are intertwined with and often responsible for their own safety in this living 

thing. And given its dynamic nature, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and no silver bullet. Finally, our youth recognize how our offline and online worlds are intricately intertwined far better than we adults do. 

It is with full recognition of this moving, living, breathing medium that we make 

our recommendations. 

Instead of repeating the Subcommittee reports in its entirety, here are some key 

recommendations that came from the work of each subcommittee. 

The Subcommittee on Internet Safety Education found that applying the Primary/ 

Secondary/Tertiary models used in risk prevention programs would work well in 

Internet safety programs, especially since a high correlation exists between offline 

and online risk. Thus, this subcommittee recommended in part that a continually 

updated online research database is necessary, as is the need to coordinate the multitude of Federal Government educational efforts in progress. 

The Subcommittee on Parental Controls & Child Protection Technology found that 

a diverse array of protective tools is available today. These tools are most effective 

as part of a ‘‘layered’’ approach to child online safety especially one that supplements parental education. Thus, this subcommittee recommended that a common 

set of terms be created to help parents understand the various tools better and that 

these technologies be ‘‘baked’’ into online products where possible. 

The Subcommittee on Child Pornography Reporting found that the PROTECT 

Our Children Act of 2008 had made marked improvements in the child pornography 

reporting process having instant impact on the volume of reports being made by the 

online industry to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Yet, nascent and smaller service providers need to be brought into the reporting fold. Thus, 

the subcommittee recommended that these smaller providers be helped along by the 

larger industry and work more closely with NCMEC. The subcommittee also recommended the consideration of tax credits for industry given the high development 

cost of proper reporting and data protection. 

Finally, the Subcommittee on Data Retention highlighted the multiple facets to 

determining what data and how much data should be retained by service providers. 

Varying viewpoints from the law enforcement, privacy advocacy, and industry sectors were considered. It was clear that law enforcement has a significant need for 

certain data to properly investigate crimes against children online. It was also clear 

that this need must be balanced with privacy concerns from legitimate users and 

the costs of data retention by service providers. Thus, the Subcommittee recommended that this discourse be maintained at the Federal level to achieve the 

greatest progress and that Congress take a close look at data preservation procedures enacted through the PROTECT Act before considering mandatory data retention. 

These are just some of the 39 recommendations we make in the OSTWG report. 

Just as we observed that the Internet had evolved from merely a technical tool to 

a reflection of our living society, we also became markedly aware of what I consider 

to be 50,000 foot-level achievable recommendations for future Congresses to consider 

when creating task forces and working groups. 

First, provide proper support and funding to task forces and working groups. Unfunded mandates quickly place undue burdens on our citizens who stand ready to 

serve the American public. 

15 

Second, fill the prescription that this and any working group writes by perhaps 

mandating a group whose sole purpose is to drive execution of the recommendations. 

Third, create a cross-functional/cross-agency coordinating body led by the government with members from every sector of the child safety ecosystem to build consensus and coordinate execution efforts. 

Fourth, conduct a review of all the online safety related programs the Federal 

Government has already undertaken and highlight the most successful ones. These 

programs can be a great place for public/private partnerships. 

Fifth, take a multi-stakeholder approach when solving the complex issues presented by today’s new media environment. The OSTWG was successful for exactly 

this reason. 

We in the industry must be a critical part of the solutions as well. 

Having led safety efforts at MySpace and News Corporation from the time that 

the social media industry was just an infant and before that at Microsoft Corporation, I offer you examples of just how the industry can take a holistic approach to 

online safety. As unusual as it may sound, the industry can find parallel and sometimes exact solutions to online challenges in the real world. Every online safety program must consist of technology, education, collaboration and enforcement designed 

to prevent unwanted content, contact and conduct. 

As builders of these technological platforms, industry must provide both front end 

user tools and back end member protections. MySpace, for example, provides users 

the ability to block anyone from contacting them, reducing incidents of 

cyberbullying. MySpace also automatically locks an account that appears to have 

anomalous activity to prevent phishing and spam attacks against users. 

The best technical solutions must then be coupled with educational programs to 

raise awareness about healthy online behaviors. MySpace provides guides for parents, teens and school officials with exactly this purpose. The school guides have 

reached over 55,000 schools in this country. MySpace also uses teachable moments 

across the site such as during the photo posting process where users are informed 

about acceptable content policies. 

While industry may be expert in technology, we must collaborate with experts in 

other sectors of child online safety. MySpace has formed relationships with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, iKeepSafe, Connect Safely, and 

Enough is Enough—some of the leading child advocacy organizations in the country. 

Working with NCMEC, MySpace sends AMBER Alerts to users when a child is kidnapped or missing. MySpace also works with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline when a user is in crisis to get them help immediately thereby preventing possible suicides. 

At the end of the day, we know that illegal incidents can occur, thus working 

closely with law enforcement 24/7/365 is a must for all of us. MySpace works with 

law enforcement to respond to requests for information that might help bring a perpetrator to justice. MySpace also works with law enforcement directly to assist in 

runaway situations in an effort to reunite runaway teens with their families. 

Thus, any industry online safety program must be holistic in nature encompassing 

technology, education, collaboration, and enforcement. I will say that the industry 

has come a long way since my own days as a child predator prosecutor in the Department of Justice. 

Speaking more broadly, as this subcommittee examines Protecting Youths in an 

Online World, you have a significant and undeniably critical role to play that we 

in the industry would embrace with open arms and one that is necessary for the 

protection of this Nation’s children online. 

Convene the Experts to inspire the dialogue. Today’s hearing is a great example 

of just this. The more places that you can inspire folks to gather, discuss, and 

analyze, the more pointed solutions can be identified. 

Educate the Masses to increase safer online practices. The more we can mandate educational programs at every level of our education system, including colleges, the healthier our citizens will be in their daily online practices. 

Fund the Programs to implement safety solutions. A perfect solution to a complex problem without proper funding is no solution at all. This is very much 

like recommending that students learn to read in elementary school without 

providing teachers and books to make that happen. 

I look forward to working with this subcommittee to identify specific action items 

that can help you convene the experts, educate the masses and fund the programs. 

In closing, I think we can step forward fully cognizant of the challenges that lie 

before us in protecting youth online and at the same time greatly hopeful that we 

16 

can find and implement solutions that will allow our children to grow up healthy 

in this digital age. 

Thank you Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the Subcommittee for giving me this opportunity address you. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Mr. McIntyre. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF MCINTYRE, 

DIRECTOR—NATIONAL POLICY, CHILDREN NOW 

Mr. MCINTYRE. There we go. 

Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking 

Member Wicker, and the other members of the Subcommittee. I’m 

Jeff McIntyre, and I’m the Director of National Policy for Children 

Now. I’m also the Chair of the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, 

which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American 

Psychological Association, and the National PTA. 

My main concerns are children’s health and education in media. 

The issues this subcommittee and the Online Safety and Technology Working Group report deal with are, frankly, issues we’ve 

been dealing with since well before media was prevalent in our 

lives: predators, bullies, invasion of our children’s privacy, their information being used inappropriately, the effects of advertising on 

children’s health. These are issues that parents are generally worried about. 

So, why is it—so, why is interactive media important in this? 

Basic child development teaches us that children learn from the environments they are in: schools, families, religious institutions, and 

communities. But, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation 

report, the place where children and youth spend most of their 

time is in the media environment. Children spend more time immersed in media than they do in any other activity. They average 

just over seven and a half hours a day in nonacademic media, and 

just under 11 hours a day if you account for multi-tasking. In today’s world, that means children and youth are spending enormous 

amounts of time interacting with media and the individuals behind 

that media. 

Parents can exert great control over where a child is, geographically; but, in the interactive world, that’s an immensely difficult 

task to do. This has been an issue, for those of us concerned about 

children, for years. With the introduction of television came the 

very first Congressional hearings on whether it contributed to juvenile delinquency back in the 1950s, violent media, sexualization, 

unhealthy food marketing. It’s about kids receiving information 

detrimental to their health that is inappropriate for their developmental level. 

Now it’s no longer just passive watching. It’s about children and 

youth receiving and giving and then receiving targeted, sometimes 

even individualized, information across platforms. Children and 

youth are no longer just observers of media, soaking up information 

like a sponge. Now they are active participants, often bypassing 

parents to create and remix games, websites, social networking 

profiles, or participate in chat rooms and advergames. These platforms, however, are increasingly designed for the individual, and 

the software often tweaked for that individual. Every time a child 

17 

or youth get propositioned online, bullied, asked for inappropriate 

information, or sent a coupon on their wireless without their parents actively choosing for that to happen, that parent’s authority 

has been hijacked. 

It’s easy to get stars in our eyes when we start talking about 

technology and media or the latest app, but the basics of what’s 

healthy or harmful for our children have existed since, well, before 

television, and will exist long after the latest platform fad has 

passed. Simply put, ‘‘buyer beware’’ should not apply to our kids, 

especially in an interactive environment, not with predators in chat 

rooms, not with bullies, and not with advertisers using their information against them. 

Let me also say that an over-reliance on media literacy as the 

panacea to these issues is an incomplete response. Media literacy 

is about education, it’s about building awareness. It’s something 

that no one is really opposed to. However, it is only a small part 

of the overall equation. 

I think it’s very important that the Subcommittee and the Committee understand that building awareness ‘‘may’’ result in a slow 

shift of attitude, which ‘‘might’’ influence behavior over an extended period of time, usually years or more. And even then, the 

amount of media literacy content is exponentially dwarfed by the 

amount of contrary unhealthy media content that is available and 

actively marketed to children and youth. 

For instance, in 19-—excuse me, a 2007 study showed that 

tweens, between the ages of 8 and 12, were exposed to almost 8,000 

advertisements a year on television alone, the majority of which 

were for food items, such as candy and fast food; none were for 

healthy foods, such as fruits or vegetables. And one in five of those 

ads included a push to a website. And that was 3 years ago. The 

same group would see a public service announcement, a PSA, 

roughly about once every 3 days. 

Our boat is small here, and the ocean of other media is wide and 

deep, that our children are in. Education is about citizenship, digital or otherwise. Years of Children Now research on children’s 

media, whether the—on the effects of media duopolies on children’s 

educational programming, the presence of minorities in children’s 

programming, or the extreme lack of effectiveness of advertising 

pledges by the food and beverage companies, has demonstrated 

that industrywide standards tend to meet only the barest minimum 

dictated by that regulation. And that doesn’t matter whether it’s 

government or self-regulatory. Then they tend to punt to public affairs to attempt to shift the burden of responsible media onto the 

parent or child viewer. 

Now, if you think of this with sexual predators, just achieving 

the lowest common denominator and just talking to our children 

about sexual predators is a very small step, but it doesn’t really 

come close to helping solve that issue. Other protections need to be 

put in place to have a comprehensive, truly safe, healthy environment for our children and youth. While media education is incredibly important, it should not be a loophole for structural attention 

to these issues. Real demonstrated change must occur in the media 

environment, for our children to be truly safe. 

18 

I want to thank the members of the Subcommittee and Committee for their attention and leadership on this issue. Children 

Now stands ready to offer our assistance and resources as you 

move forward—as we move forward in addressing this critical moment in our media history. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McIntyre follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEFF MCINTYRE, 

DIRECTOR—NATIONAL POLICY, CHILDREN NOW

Good Morning Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker and members of the 

Subcommittee. I’m Jeff McIntyre and I’m the Director of National Policy for Children Now. I’m also the Chair of the Children’s Media Policy Coalition, which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, 

and the National PTA. 

My main concerns are children’s health and education—in media. The issues this 

Subcommittee and the Online Safety and Technology Working Group Report deal 

with are, frankly, issues we’ve been dealing with since well before media was prevalent in our children’s lives. Predators, bullies, invasion of our children’s privacy, 

their information being used inappropriately, the effects of advertising on our children’s health—these are issues that all parents are worried about. 

So, why is interactive media important in this? Basic child development teaches 

us that children learn from the environments they are in—schools, families, religious institutions, and communities. But, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report—the place where children and youth spend most of their time is in 

the media environment. Children spend more time immersed in media than any 

other activity. They average just over seven and a half hours a day in non-academic 

media—and just under 11 hours a day, if you account for multi-tasking. In today’s 

world, that means children and youth are spending enormous amounts of time interacting with media—and the individuals behind that media. Parents can exert great 

control over where a child is geographically. In the interactive world, that’s an immensely difficult task to do. 

This has been an issue for those concerned about children for years—with the introduction of television came the first Congressional hearings on whether it contributed to juvenile delinquency in the 1950s. Violent media, sexualization, unhealthy 

food marketing—it’s about kids receiving information detrimental to their health 

that is inappropriate for their developmental level. Now, it’s no longer just passive 

watching—it’s about children and youth receiving and giving and then receiving targeted—sometimes individualized—information across platforms. Children and youth 

are no longer just observers of media, soaking up information like a sponge. Now, 

they are active participants—often bypassing parents—to create and remix—games, 

websites, social networking profiles, or participate in chat rooms or adver-games. 

These platforms, however, are increasingly designed for the individual and the software tweaked for that individual. 

Every time a child or youth gets propositioned online, bullied, asked for inappropriate information, or sent a coupon on their wireless without their parents actively 

choosing for that to happen—that parent’s authority has been hijacked. It’s easy to 

get stars in our eyes when talking about technology, media, or the latest app. But 

the basics of what’s healthy or harmful for our children have existed since before 

television and will exist long after the latest platform fad has passed. Simply put, 

‘‘Buyer Beware’’ should not apply to our kids, especially in an interactive environment. Not with predators in chat rooms, not with bullies, and not with advertisers 

using their information against them. 

Let me also say that an over-reliance on media literacy as the panacea to these 

issues is an incomplete response. Media literacy is about education—about building 

awareness. It is something that no one is opposed to. However, it is only a small 

part the overall equation. I think it’s important that the Subcommittee understand 

that ‘‘building awareness’’ may result in a slow shift of attitude which might influence behavior over an extended period of time—usually years or more. And, even 

then—the amount of media literacy content is exponentially dwarfed by the amount 

of contrary, unhealthy media content available and actively marketed to children 

and youth. 

For instance—A 2007 study showed that tweens between 8 and 12 were exposed 

to almost 8000 ads a year on television alone—the majority of which were for food 

items, such as candy and fast food. None were for healthy foods such as fruits or 

19 

vegetables. One in five ads included a push to the website. That same group would 

see a PSA only once every 3 days. 

Our boat is small and the ocean of other media is wide and deep. 

Education is about citizenship—digital or otherwise. Years of Children Now research on children’s media—whether on the effects of media duopolies on children’s 

educational programming, the presence of minorities in children’s programming, or 

the extreme lack of effectiveness of advertising pledges by the food and beverage 

companies—has demonstrated that industry wide standards tend to meet only the 

barest minimum dictated by that regulation—whether government or self-regulatory. Then, they punt to public affairs to attempt to shift the burden of responsible 

media onto the parent or child viewer. 

If you think of this with sexual predators—just achieving the lowest common denominator and just talking to our children about sexual predators is a very small 

step—but it doesn’t really come close to helping solve that issue. Other protections 

need to be put in place to have a comprehensive, truly safe, healthy environment 

for our children and youth. While media education is incredibly important, it should 

not be a loophole for structural attention to these issues. Real, demonstrated change 

must occur in the media environment for our children to be truly safe. 

I want to thank Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker and the Subcommittee 

for their attention and leadership on this issue. Children Now stands ready to offer 

our assistance and resources to you as we move forward in addressing this critical 

moment in our media history. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Ms. Collins. 

STATEMENT OF MICHELLE COLLINS, VICE PRESIDENT, 

EXPLOITED CHILDREN DIVISION, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN 

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, 

I welcome this opportunity to appear before you to discuss the risk 

to children on the Internet. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, NCMEC, joins you in your concern for the safety 

of our youth, and thanks you for bringing attention to this very serious problem facing America’s communities. 

As you know, NCMEC is a not-for-profit corporation mandated 

by Congress and working in partnership with the U.S. Department 

of Justice. NCMEC is a public/private partnership funded in part 

by Congress and in part by the private sector. For 26 years, 

NCMEC has operated under Congressional mandate to serve as the 

Nation—or the national resource center for missing and exploited 

children. 

This statutory mandate includes 19 specific operational functions, among which is the CyberTipline, which is the 9–1–1 of the 

Internet, that public and electronic service providers may use to report Internet crimes against children. 

The CyberTipline is the national clearinghouse for leads and tips 

regarding child sexual exploitation crimes. It’s operated in partnership with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Internet Crimes Against Children Task 

Forces that are located throughout the country. We receive reports 

in eight categories of crime—or crimes against children, including 

the possession, manufacture, and distribution of child pornography, 

as well as online enticement of children for sexual acts. 

NCMEC is pleased to have participated in the Online Safety and 

Technology Working Group, OSTWG, created by this committee’s 

legislation. Its membership comprised a broad spectrum of knowledge and experience in online safety arena. The report recently 

issued by OSTWG contains important recommendations for 

20 

progress. I’d like to underscore the OSTWG’s report’s conclusion 

that approaches to online safety must take into account the dynamic nature of the Internet and technology and the way that 

things can be used. 

We agree that everyone has a role to play. Parents and guardians can become more involved in their children’s online activities, 

industry can actively self-regulate to keep its safe—or, its users 

safer, and the government can help increase awareness and encourage digital literacy. These efforts would benefit significantly from 

comprehensive, up-to-date information on these issues. Given the 

rapidly changing landscape of online communication, we strongly 

recommend that current research be conducted and maintained. 

The Internet offers tremendous potential, especially for youth. It 

has changed the way we communicate, learn, and conduct our daily 

activities. Unfortunately, the Internet can also be used to victimize 

children. The combination of widespread use and relative anonymity makes it an appealing tool for those who wish to victimize children. This is supported by our data. Reports to the CyberTipline 

about online enticement of children for sexual acts has increased 

714 percent since 1998. The attachments to my written testimony 

contain excerpts from actual CyberTipline reports that illustrate 

the problem. 

Youth will often engage in risky behavior in both the real world 

and the online world. The combination of the Internet, easy transmission of digital images, and poor judgment can lead to serious 

and unintended consequences for youth, including becoming the 

victim of enticement, blackmail, harassment, and exploitation by 

both adults and other youths. 

Webcams, cell phone Internet access, and social networking sites 

increase the vulnerability of our children. Webcams offer this exciting ability to see the person you’re communicating with over the 

Internet. While this technology has many benefits, it can also be 

used, and is used, to exploit children. The reports to our 

CyberTipline of incidents involving children and Webcams have increased. Many children are victimized inadvertently by appearing 

on their Webcams without clothes as a joke or on a dare from 

friends, unaware that these images may end up in a global child 

pornography enterprise. Other children are victims of blackmail, 

threatened with disclosure to friends and family of his or her performance before the Webcam doesn’t become more sexually explicit. 

Cell phones have placed the—or, has placed the Internet basically in our children’s pockets. From January of 2008 until December of 2009, there was a 650-percent increase in the number of 

CyberTip reports we’ve received in which a cell phone was used in 

the sexual victimization of a child. 

‘‘Sexting’’ is a term coined by the media that generally refers to 

a youth writing sexually-explicit messages and sending sexually-explicit images of themselves to their peers. This is an increasing 

problem that should be addressed through education of both parents and youth about the long-term consequences of apparently innocent activity amongst friends. 

Social networking sites appeal to children’s natural desire for 

self-expression. These hugely popular sites permit users to create 

profiles containing detailed and highly personal information about 

21 

themselves, which sometimes can lead to individuals forging relationships with that child. Children need to be taught the value of 

limiting access of their personal information to those who are within their known circle of family and friends. 

NCMEC has two resources that can help parents and youths 

learn about ways to be safer on the Internet. NetSmartz is an 

interactive, educational safety resource for children, parents, 

guardians, educators, and law enforcement, that uses age-appropriate 3-D activities to teach children how to be safer on the Internet. And, NetSmartz411—it’s an Internet safety help desk and online resources for parents and guardians that can help answer their 

questions about Internet safety. 

The National Center is actively engaged with industry leaders on 

their efforts to make youth less vulnerable when using their services. We encourage them to prohibit illegal and abusive activity as 

one of their terms of services, and to enforce this vigorously. 

However, the critical factor in youth online safety is parental involvement. Nothing can replace the value of parents understanding 

what their children are doing online, and why, and helping them 

develop good judgment in their online communication. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Collins follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHELLE COLLINS, VICE PRESIDENT, EXPLOITED

CHILDREN DIVISION, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I welcome this opportunity to 

appear before you to discuss the risks to children on the Internet. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) joins you in your concern for the 

safety of our youth and thanks you for bringing attention to this serious problem 

facing America’s communities. 

As you know, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is a not-forprofit corporation, mandated by Congress and working in partnership with the U.S. 

Department of Justice. NCMEC is a public-private partnership, funded in part by 

Congress and in part by the private sector. For 26 years NCMEC has operated 

under Congressional mandate to serve as the national resource center and clearinghouse on missing and exploited children. This statutory mandate (see 42 U.S.C. 

§ 5773) includes 19 specific operational functions, among which are: 

• operating a national 24-hour toll-free hotline, 1–800–THE–LOST (1–800–843– 

5678), to intake reports of missing children and receive leads about ongoing 

cases; 

• providing technical assistance and training to individuals and law enforcement 

agencies in the prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases 

involving missing and exploited children; 

• tracking the incidence of attempted child abductions; 

• providing forensic technical assistance to law enforcement; 

• facilitating the deployment of the National Emergency Child Locator Center 

during periods of national disasters; 

• working with law enforcement and the private sector to reduce the distribution 

of child pornography over the Internet; 

• operating a child victim identification program to assist law enforcement in 

identifying victims of child pornography; 

• developing and disseminating programs and information about Internet safety 

and the prevention of child abduction and sexual exploitation; 

• providing technical assistance and training to law enforcement in identifying 

and locating non-compliant sex offenders; and 

• operating the CyberTipline, the ‘‘9-1-1 for the Internet,’’ that the public and 

electronic service providers may use to report Internet-related child sexual exploitation. 

22 

The CyberTipline is the national clearinghouse for leads and tips regarding child 

sexual exploitation crimes. It is operated in partnership with the Federal Bureau 

of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces (ICAC), the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. 

Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, as well as other 

state and local law enforcement. We receive reports in eight categories of crimes 

against children: 

• possession, manufacture and distribution of child pornography; 

• online enticement of children for sexual acts; 

• child prostitution; 

• sex tourism involving children; 

• extrafamilial child sexual molestation; 

• unsolicited obscene material sent to a child; 

• misleading domain names; and 

• misleading words or digital images on the Internet. 

These reports are made by both the public and by Electronic Service Providers, 

who are required by law to report to the CyberTipline. The leads are reviewed by 

NCMEC analysts, who examine and evaluate the content, add related information 

that would be useful to law enforcement, use publicly-available search tools to determine the geographic location of the apparent criminal act, and provide all information to the appropriate law enforcement agency for investigation. These reports are 

also triaged to ensure that children in imminent danger get first priority. 

The FBI, ICE and Postal Inspection Service have ‘‘real time’’ access to the 

CyberTipline, and assign agents and analysts to work at NCMEC. In the 12 years 

since the CyberTipline began, NCMEC has received and processed more than 

920,000 reports. To date, electronic service providers have reported to the 

CyberTipline more than 7.5 million images of sexually exploited children. To date, 

more than 35 million child pornography images and videos have been reviewed by 

the analysts in our Child Victim Identification Program, which assists prosecutors 

to secure convictions for crimes involving identified child victims and helps law enforcement to locate and rescue child victims who have not yet been identified. 

NCMEC is pleased to have participated in the Online Safety and Technology 

Working Group (OSTWG) created by this Committee’s legislation. Its membership 

comprised a broad spectrum of knowledge and experience in the online safety arena. 

The report recently issued by OSTWG contains important recommendations for 

progress. 

I’d like to underscore the OSTWG Report’s conclusion that approaches to online 

safety must take into account the dynamic nature of technology and the ways that 

it can be used. We agree that everyone has a role to play: parents/guardians can 

become more involved in their children’s online activities; industry can actively selfregulate to keep its users safer; and the government can help increase awareness 

and encourage digital literacy. These efforts would benefit significantly from comprehensive, up-to-date information on these issues. Given the rapidly changing landscape of online communication, we strongly recommend that current research be 

conducted and maintained. 

The Internet offers tremendous potential, especially for youth. It has changed the 

way we communicate, learn and conduct our daily activities. Unfortunately, the 

Internet can also be used to victimize children. The combination of widespread use 

and relative anonymity makes it an appealing tool for those who seek child victims. 

This is supported by our own data: reports to the CyberTipline about online enticement of children for sexual acts have increased 714 percent since 1998. The attachments to my written testimony contain excerpts from actual reports that illustrate this problem. 

Youth will often engage in risky behavior, in both the ‘‘real’’ world and in the online world. The combination of the Internet, easy transmission of digital images, and 

poor judgment can lead to serious and unintended consequences for youth—including becoming the victim of enticement, blackmail, harassment and exploitation by 

both adults and other youth. Webcams, cell phone Internet access and social networking sites increase the vulnerability of our children. 

Webcams offer the exciting ability to see the person you’re communicating with 

over the Internet. While this technology has many benefits, it can also be used to 

exploit children. The reports to our CyberTipline of incidents involving children and 

webcams have increased. Many children are victimized inadvertently, by appearing 

on their webcams without clothes as a joke, or on a dare from friends, unaware that 

23 

these images may end up in a global child pornography enterprise. Other children 

are victims of blackmail, threatened with disclosure to friends and family if his or 

her ‘‘performance’’ before the webcam doesn’t become more sexually explicit. 

Cell phones have placed the Internet in our children’s pockets. From January 

2008 to December 2009, there was a 650 percent increase of CyberTipline reports 

in which a cell phone was involved in the sexual victimization of a child. A 2008 

online survey of 653 teens between the ages of 13 and 19 conducted by TRU and 

presented by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy 

and CosmoGirl.com found that 20 percent of teens surveyed have posted nude or 

seminude pictures of themselves online. In addition, 39 percent of teens surveyed 

have sent or posted sexually suggestive messages (text, e-mail, IM). 

‘‘Sexting’’ is a term coined by the media that generally refers to youth writing sexually explicit messages, taking sexually explicit photos of themselves or others in 

their peer group, and transmitting those photos and/or messages to their peers. This 

is an increasing problem that should be addressed through education of both parents and youth about the long-term consequences of apparently ‘‘innocent’’ activity 

among friends. 

Social networking sites appeal to children’s natural desire for self-expression. 

These hugely popular sites permit users to create online profiles containing detailed 

and highly personal information—which can sometimes be used by individuals to 

forge a ‘‘cyber-relationship’’ that can lead to a child being victimized. Children need 

to be taught the value of limiting access to their personal information to only those 

who are in their known circle of friends and family. 

NCMEC has two resources that can help parents and youth learn about ways to 

be safer on the Internet: 

• NetSmartz is an interactive, educational safety resource for children, parents, 

guardians, educators, and law enforcement that uses age-appropriate, 3–D activities to teach children how to stay safer on the Internet. 

• NetSmartz411 is an Internet Safety Helpdesk, an online resource for parents 

and guardians that can answer questions about Internet safety, computers, 

portable communications devices, and much more. 

NCMEC is actively engaged with industry leaders on their efforts to make youth 

less vulnerable when using their services. We encourage them to prohibit illegal and 

abusive activity as one of their terms of service and to enforce this vigorously. It 

is important for them to take reports of abuse by their users and to make their 

users aware of this reporting ability. 

However, the critical factor in youth online safety is parental involvement. Nothing can replace the value of parents understanding what their children are doing 

online, and why, and helping them develop good judgment in their online communications. 

Thank you. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Mr. Snowden. 

STATEMENT OF K. DANE SNOWDEN, VICE PRESIDENT, 

EXTERNAL AND STATE AFFAIRS, 

CTIA—THE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION  

Mr. SNOWDEN. Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, Chairman Rockefeller, and Senator Klobuchar. 

My name is Dane Snowden, and, as the Vice President of External and State Affairs at CTIA, I was the wireless industry representative on the NTIA Online Safety and Technology Working 

Group. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to share 

CTIA’s views on protecting youth in an online and mobile world. 

Across a diverse wireless ecosystem, the wireless industry is 

proactively doing its part to augment the educational and social 

growth of today’s youth by preparing them for an increasingly 

digitized and mobile future. CTIA is proud of the wireless industry’s commitment to make mobile safety and responsible use a priority. 

24 

With respect to the Working Group’s report, we support the recommendations regarding online safety education, parental control 

tools, and child pornography reporting and data retention issues. 

Specifically, we agree that there is no one-size-fits-all, once-and-forall solution to every aspect of online safety, especially in the rapidly innovating wireless industry. 

There are several areas of the Working Group’s report which I 

would like to highlight today. First, it will come as no surprise to 

every parent in the room that wireless devices are omnipresent 

with American teens and tweens, who often seem to communicate 

with text messaging, photo and video sharing, more than they do 

the old-fashioned way, by voice. That, I suppose, is a sign of the 

times. 

However, we recognize that the many advantages wireless provides also present opportunities for inappropriate behavior, such as 

texting while driving, sexting, and cyberbullying. In a sense, this 

is not new behavior, and the introduction of new technology has 

often raised parental and policymaking concerns about the impact 

of that technology on young people. 

As innovation in the wireless industry expanded exponentially, 

we anticipated that these same concerns would be raised, and have 

worked to stay ahead of them. In 2004, CTIA developed carrier content and Internet guidelines. Our goal was to provide consumers 

with information and tools to make informed choices when accessing wireless content. Fast forward to today, we see a demand for 

more content available via the Internet versus the old walled-garden approach. 

The wireless industry has responded, and currently a majority of 

the 600 unique devices available can access the open Internet. In 

response to the evolution, the wireless industry has taken action to 

empower parents with choice and control over mobile wireless content so that parents may determine what is appropriate for their 

children. 

Some of the tools our members offer include: content filters, 

based on rating for music, games, and apps; limits on calling, 

texting, and camera features; and parental notification and monitoring services. In addition, CTIA has worked to extend this successful self-regulatory model to location-based services, common 

short codes, and mobile financial services. 

Built on notice and consent policies, CTIA’s LBS guidelines promote and protect user privacy, especially for children, as innovative 

LBS services are developed and deployed. 

Given the growing variety of devices and services capable of 

Internet access, it is worth noting that the Working Group’s consensus is that there is no single one-size-fits-all parental-control 

technology or safeguard for all media platforms. Instead, as the 

Working Group recommended, CTIA recognizes the education and 

awareness-building efforts are absolutely crucial to helping parents 

navigate the diverse parental-control marketplace and keep up 

with their children’s evolving mobile usage. 

For this reason, CTIA and the Wireless Foundation recently 

launched ‘‘Be Smart. Be Fair. Be Safe: Responsible [Wireless] Use,’’ 

a national education campaign to help teach children responsible 

25 

wireless-use techniques and link parents to the available tools and 

services offered by our member companies. 

And consistent with our belief that education is key, we support 

legislation, offered by Senator Menendez and Representative 

Wasserman-Schultz, which provides government grants to a variety 

of stakeholders who promote Internet safety, digital citizenship, 

and media literacy. 

As proud as we are of our efforts to date, we also know that our 

work to promote online safety will not be finished anytime soon, as 

a new cohort of users signs on, each and every day. It is our hope 

that the Working Group’s report, along with our industry’s efforts, 

will help to inform online safety initiatives at the Federal, State, 

and local levels. 

The wireless industry believes that, with strategic collaborations, 

we will continue to meet the demand and ensure the benefits of 

wireless to the ever-growing list of American wireless consumers. 

We look forward to working with the Committee and other stakeholders to craft policies which properly balance the goal of online 

safety and the need for flexibility in responding quickly to behavioral, technological, and market changes. 

Thank you. And I look forward to answering any questions you 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Snowden follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF K. DANE SNOWDEN, VICE PRESIDENT, 

EXTERNAL AND STATE AFFAIRS, CTIA—THE WIRELESS ASSOCIATION  

Good afternoon, Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, and members of the 

Subcommittee. My name is K. Dane Snowden, and I am the Vice President of External and State Affairs at CTIA—The Wireless Association  (‘‘CTIA’’). Before joining 

CTIA, I was Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (‘‘FCC’’) for 4 years. In my capacity at the FCC, 

I oversaw all agency consumer related policy issues ranging from the creation of the 

National Do-Not-Call regulatory policy to the consumer outreach and complaint divisions. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to share with you the views of 

CTIA and our member companies on protecting youth in an online world. 

Today, my comments will highlight the wireless industry’s continuing efforts to 

empower parents, safeguard privacy, and help ensure America’s children and teens 

are using their wireless devices in a responsible manner. Through a diverse wireless 

ecosystem of service providers, device manufacturers, and software and application 

developers, the wireless industry is proactively facilitating the educational and social growth of today’s youth by preparing them for an increasingly digitized and mobile future. Mobile technology offers many benefits to children and teens, including 

thousands of applications (‘‘apps’’) focused on civic, educational, health care and social opportunities. Even with the challenge of protecting children in the more ‘‘open’’ 

mobile wireless ecosystem, the wireless industry continues to empower parents with 

choice and control over mobile content so that they may determine appropriate mobile uses for their children and encourage responsible behavior. The wireless industry also has launched a series of educational initiatives and partnerships designed 

to promote mobile safety and responsible use. 

Given the wireless industry’s substantial ongoing efforts, CTIA and our member 

companies support Congressional efforts which encourage stakeholders to educate 

parents and children regarding responsible mobile device practices. As an active 

member of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications & Information Administration’s (‘‘NTIA’’) Online Safety and Technology Working Group 

(‘‘Working Group’’), CTIA also supports the Youth Safety on a Living Internet 

(‘‘OSTWG Report’’) report’s findings that there is no ‘‘one-size-fits-all, once-and-forall solution’’ to every aspect of online safety, rather there must be a layered, multiVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
26 

1 National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Youth Safety on a Living 

Internet: Report of the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (June 4, 2010), available 

at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2010/OSTWGlFinallReportl060410.pdf (‘‘OSTWG Report’’). 2Pew Internet & American Life Project, Teens and Mobile Phones (April 20, 2010), available 

at http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx (‘‘Pew Teens and 

Mobile Phones Report’’). 3 Comments of CTIA—The Wireless Association , MB Docket No. 09–194 (filed Feb. 24, 2010) 

(‘‘CTIA Empowering Parents NOI Comments’’); see also, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 

Teens and Sexting 2 (Dec. 15, 2009), available at http://www.pewinternet.org/∼/media//Files/ 

Reports/2009/PIPlTeenslandlSexting.pdf (‘‘Pew Sexting Report’’). 4 CTIA Empowering Parents NOI Comments at 8. 

5OSTWG Report at 31–34. 

6 CTIA Empowering Parents NOI Comments at 13–20. 

stakeholder approach which utilizes available content control tools and enhances online safety educational strategies for children and parents.1

I. Children Are Using Mobile Devices and Services to Access Internet 

Content and Utilize Numerous Innovative Benefits on a Regular Basis 

CTIA recognizes the increasingly prominent and common role that wireless devices and services are playing in the development of America’s youth. Children are 

actively using mobile devices on a regular basis, and progressively using mobile 

phones at younger ages. According to an April 2010 report by the Pew Internet & 

American Life Project, 83 percent of 17-year-olds now own a cell phone (up from 64 

percent in 2004), and 58 percent of 12-year-olds now own a cell phone (up from 18 

percent in 2004).2 These children view mobile devices as critical tools for meeting 

their communications needs and a ‘‘centerpiece in teen social life’’ through text messaging, photo and video sharing, Internet access, ‘‘apps’’, and other mobile data services.3 In addition, a mobile device may often be the only link to the Internet for children from low-income or minority homes where home broadband adoption is generally lower than other demographic communities.4

As part of this surge in children’s mobile technology use, all elements of the wireless ecosystem, including carriers, manufacturers, and software and application developers, have enabled numerous innovative and beneficial tools for children, from 

education to health care to safety and civic participation. Using ‘‘mLearning’’ as just 

one example, innovative mobile wireless services offer personalized educational benefits as children use mobile devices to harness information on the Internet, choose 

from the thousands of educational ‘‘apps,’’ and participate in class through text messaging, online polling and other multi-media uses. In fact, an entire segment of the 

mobile device market dedicated entirely to promoting reading through ‘‘e-readers’’ 

and downloadable books has recently developed. 

It is not hard to imagine that one day soon mobile devices may replace students’ 

traditional ‘‘book bags.’’ Indeed, today millions of school-age children never leave 

home for school without a hand-held mobile device. And while some parents insist 

on this for safety reasons, the versatility of mobile devices for recreation as well as 

communication ensures that few kids need to be convinced to carry one to and from 

school. Despite their popularity with students, however, the utility of mobile devices 

as part of the educational mission has not been widely appreciated, and school administrators occasionally bemoan their potentially distracting influences. Unfortunately, this perception overlooks the vast educational benefits of mobile devices discussed above. 

In order to address these issues, the OSTWG Report recommends policies and incentives to support ‘‘digital citizenship’’ which encourages children to respect themselves and others online and off and ‘‘media literacy’’ which promotes critical thinking about what is posted, shared, produced and uploaded as well as content that’s 

consumed.5 In addition, CTIA recommends that government agencies help ensure 

parents, teachers, and children take advantage of the learning opportunities provided by mobile devices, including updating school technology policies to more fully 

utilize mobile and Internet services and modify Federal Universal Service programs 

to be more technology neutral.6 As mobile devices and services become more ubiquitous among America’s children and teens, Congress should consider these recommendations which can help provide guidance in the evolving online mobile environment which children are increasingly and regularly utilizing. 

27 

7OSTWG Report at 5. 8Wireless Content Guidelines, CTIA Consumer Info, http://www.ctia.org/consumerlinfo/ 

service/index.cfm/AID/10394 (last visited June 28, 2010) (‘‘Guidelines for Carrier Content Classification and Internet Access’’). 9FCC, Implementation of the Child Safe Viewing Act; Examination of Parental Control Technologies for Video or Audio Programming, Report, MB Docket 09–26, ¶ 99 (2009) (‘‘FCC Child 

Safe Viewing Act Report’’). 10For example, the Apple iTunes and App Stores include content-based age ratings for apps, 

and the iPhone and iPad allow users to restrict apps based on their rating. Apple’s rating system includes four categories: 4+, 9+, 12+, and 17+. See Apple iTunes Store and product descriptions as of June 26, 2010. 

II. The Wireless Industry Continues Proactive Efforts to Empower Parents 

and Encourage Responsible Use 

a. The Wireless Industry Has Proactively Offered Tools and Developed Best Practices 

to Empower Parents and Protect Children 

The wireless industry has taken action to empower parents with choice and control over mobile wireless content so that they may determine what is appropriate 

for their children. Carriers, moreover, have taken extensive steps to meet the demands of parents for these tools and have introduced a series of initiatives to educate parents and children about the responsibilities and risks of mobile connectivity. 

In the ‘‘open’’ mobile wireless ecosystem, the OSTWG Report found that children are 

increasingly exposed to the same risks faced across other technological platforms, 

even as many of those risks are similar to ones they face offline.7

In response to consumer and governmental demand for open access, open devices, 

and greater Internet connectivity on handsets, carriers have moved away from 

‘‘walled garden’’ approaches which offered consumers service provider-reviewed services and protected consumers, including children, from harmful content and online 

activities. Today, wireless carriers generally have little control over content consumers may access on their networks in the ‘‘open’’ wireless ecosystem. Instead, numerous entities in the wireless ecosystem create, distribute, and manage content 

that can be accessed by consumers, including children. As a result, children may be 

exposed to the same questionable content that is available on the open Internet including violent, offensive and adult-themed content, personalized advertising, privacy risks and the plethora of mobile applications which are not intended for use 

by children. In addition, the technological advantages of mobile previously highlighted which have opened doors for positive educational and social interactions also 

present opportunities for children to engage in irresponsible or inappropriate behavior on mobile devices and services, such as texting while driving, sexting, textual 

harassment and cyberbullying. 

In addressing these issues, CTIA plays a key role in facilitating industry discussions about mobile safety and responsible use through voluntary, self-regulatory 

best practices and guidelines under which carriers, manufacturers and application 

vendors agree to provide significant protections for consumers and, most specifically, 

children. In 2004, well before the influx of wireless data services, applications and 

video services, CTIA developed Guidelines for Carrier Content Classification and 

Internet Access to provide consumers with information and tools to make informed 

choices when accessing wireless content.8 Under these voluntary guidelines, participating carriers agree to develop content classification standards and educate consumers about the meaning of the chosen categories and ratings. While the implementation of advanced parental control technologies is left to individual wireless 

providers and third-party application vendors, the guidelines play an important role 

in providing a set of baseline requirements that help standardize content classifications for the carrier-content available on wireless devices. This in turn facilitates 

outreach and educational campaigns intended to inform parents about the types of 

content accessible via wireless devices, as well as the tools available to offer children 

a safe user experience. 

Today, individual wireless carriers offer parents a variety of tools that can control 

children’s access to certain content (e.g., filters) and prevent the distribution or receipt of inappropriate content (e.g., feature or service limits); educate children and 

parents about how to be safe online; and provide parents with options to manage 

their children’s messaging, calling, and data usage.9 Product manufacturers have 

also deployed effective parental and content controls to help protect children.10 In 

addition to carrier-provided advanced technologies and parental controls, consumers 

today can independently download third-party solutions to their wireless devices 

through app stores, websites, and other outlets, opening up a host of additional conVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
28 

11FCC Child Safe Viewing Act Report at ¶ 104. 12OSTWG Report at 60. 13 In April 2010, CTIA released an update of the wireless industry’s voluntary ‘‘Best Practices 

and Guidelines for Location-Based Services,’’ which promotes and protects the privacy of wireless customers’ location information. CTIA—The Wireless Association , Best Practices and 

Guidelines for Location Based Services, http://www.ctia.org/businesslresources/wic/ 

index.cfm/AID/11300 (last visited June 28, 2010). 14See FCC Child Safe Viewing Act Report; OSTWG Report at 65. 15OSTWG Report at 65–66. 

tent management tools for parents.11 As the OSTWG Report found, the marketplace 

for parental controls is functioning fairly well, but more can be done to improve 

awareness and usage of existing tools while also striving to improve the tools themselves.12

In addition to the Guidelines for Carrier Content Classification and Internet Ac- cess, CTIA has worked with carriers and other members of the wireless ecosystem 

to extend this successful, self-regulatory model to location based services (‘‘LBS’’), 

common short codes and mobile financial services. With the aggregation of personal 

information on the Internet and evolving wireless ecosystem which may rely on, use 

or incorporate the location of a device to provide or enhance a service, great diligence is necessary to safeguard privacy, prevent fraud and unwanted dissemination 

of personally identifying information (‘‘PII’’), especially with regard to children. 

CTIA’s Best Practices and Guidelines for Location-Based Services (‘‘LBS Guidelines’’), built on the now familiar foundation of ‘‘Notice-andConsent,’’ promote and 

protect user privacy as new LBS services are developed and deployed.13

CTIA’s LBS Guidelines provide special protections for children, and they recognize 

that in some circumstances—including protecting the safety of children—a wireless 

carrier’s account holder (rather than an authorized user, such as a child) may need 

to determine whether LBS may be used at all or a location disclosed to a thirdparty. For example, a parent/account holder may want to subscribe to LBS to know 

when a child arrives at school or may want to prevent the disclosure of a child’s 

location information for safety reasons. Importantly, CTIA’s LBS Guidelines are ex- pansive in scope by applying to all LBS providers, including application developers 

and equipment providers, and not simply limited to wireless carriers. These guidelines, which CTIA recently updated to reflect changes in the technology, the market, 

and consumers’ demands, are an example of how self-regulation has the flexibility 

and the speed to adapt to the rapidly evolving wireless ecosystem. 

CTIA understands that protecting children in these online and mobile environments is a challenging task for the industry, government and—especially—parents. 

Despite these challenges, the wireless industry continues to respond with effective, 

innovative solutions to empower parents with choice and control over the mobile 

content and services their children increasingly utilize. However, Congress should 

recognize the consensus of online safety experts and industry that there is no single, 

one-size-fits-all parental control technology or safeguard for all media platforms because of the great variety in capabilities and operating systems, even among competing providers within the same media platform, and rapidly innovating technologies.14 As the Working Group recommended, government policies can and 

should encourage stakeholders to help educate parents and children regarding safe, 

responsible mobile device practices that are already available.15

b. The Wireless Industry Develops and Implements Educational Outreach and 

Partnership Efforts to Empower Parents and Educate Children 

Even with the availability of parental control tools and self-regulatory best practices, CTIA recognizes that education and information are the keys to helping parents navigate the diverse marketplace of parental control tools and keep up with 

their children’s evolving mobile usage. For this reason, CTIA and The Wireless 

Foundation recently announced Be Smart. Be Fair. Be Safe: Responsible Wireless 

Use (‘‘Be Smart’’) (www.besmartwireless.com), a national education campaign focused on equipping parents with the necessary materials and tools to help children 

use their wireless devices responsibly. This site features resources such as sample 

family rules for parents, lesson plans for teachers, information about the latest research and surveys, and a toolkit with links to parental controls features offered by 

our member companies. 

Launched in March 2010, the ‘‘Be Smart’’ campaign has already reached millions 

of viewers and listeners of newspapers, magazines and radio stations around the 

country. Just last month, The Wireless Foundation held a ‘‘Be Smart’’ event with 

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to bring together local and national online 

safety experts, parents, law enforcement and industry representatives to discuss the 

latest research and initiatives in mobile online safety and more events are being 

29 

16On the Road, Off the Phone: How to Talk to Your Teenagers, http://info.howcast.com/ 

onroadoffphone (last visited June 28, 2010). 17See Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education Act, H.R. 3630, 111th Cong. (2009) 

(‘‘AWARE Act’’); see also, School and Family Education About the Internet Act of 2009, S. 1047 

111th Cong. (2009) (‘‘SAFE Internet Act’’). 18See, National Association of Attorneys General, 2008–2009 Presidential Initiative—Year of 

the Child: Protecting and Empowering Our Next Generation, http://www.naag.org/year-of-thechild1.php (last visited June 27, 2010). 

planned. In addition, the ‘‘Be Smart’’ site links to CTIA and the National Safety 

Council’s On the Road, Off the Phone campaign to educate young people and empower parents to talk to their teenage drivers about the dangers of potential distracted driving resulting from cell phone use while behind the wheel.16

As the OSTWG Report recommended, these education and awareness-building efforts are absolutely crucial to ensure parents have the tools they need and children 

are taught to make informed and responsible choices. In March 2010, CTIA joined 

representatives from industry, academia and online safety advocates to support 

Congressional legislation which promotes online safety education through government grants to educational agencies, nonprofit organizations, and schools to carry 

out Internet safety and digital media literacy measures in schools to prevent harm 

from occurring in the first place.17 Grant recipients would be authorized to use the 

funds to develop tools to teach children how to safely, securely and ethically use the 

Internet and support peer-driven Internet safety initiatives and develop public education campaigns to promote awareness of online risks and improve the health of 

young people. 

CTIA also supports efforts to coordinate and share information at the Federal and 

state levels. For example, the recent efforts between the FCC, Federal Trade Commission (‘‘FTC’’), and the U.S. Department of Education (as part of the 

OnGuardOnline public-private coalition) to release the Net Cetera online safety 

guidebook for parents is a positive example of how government agencies can help 

protect children. Among other things, the Net Cetera guidebook can help parents 

communicate with their children about using mobile phones safely and responsibly 

and OnGuardOnline.gov provides links to information about available parental control tools and technologies across technological platforms. CTIA also supports efforts 

of state Attorneys General to provide information and education about issues such 

as cyberbullying, textual harassment and online predation of children.18 Given these 

ongoing public and private initiatives, CTIA believes that awareness and outreach 

can help parents utilize the available tools and that education is the best way to 

ensure children are utilizing mobile devices and services for responsible and positive 

purposes. 

III. Conclusion 

Today’s tech-savvy children continue to embrace mobile technologies for educational, entertainment, safety, and other purposes. The wireless industry has 

proactively deployed effective tools that empower parents, and it will continue to innovate in the future. As the wireless industry develops innovative devices, cuttingedge applications and deploys next-generation networks, CTIA believes that our industry’s best practices must continue to evolve to reflect the growing consumer demands in the wireless ecosystem. It is our hope that the OSTWG Report will help 

to inform online safety initiatives at the Federal, state and local levels of government and further encourage partnerships with the wireless industry to educate parents and children about responsible wireless use. We look forward to working with 

this committee to craft policies which properly balance the need for flexibility in responding quickly to behavioral, technological and market changes. The Wireless industry believes with voluntary initiatives and strategic collaborations, we will continue to ensure the delivery of the benefits of wireless products and services to all 

Americans. Thank you. 

ATTACHMENT A 

WIRELESS INDUSTRY INITIATIVES TO EMPOWER PARENTS

Parental Empowerment Tools 

Content filters—Wireless carriers may provide parents with the ability to filter 

content available on a carrier’s network. Wireless carriers, manufacturers and third 

party vendors may also offer wireless content filters for open Internet access. 

Calling and text limits—Wireless carriers offer a variety of calling, text and data 

plan options which allow parents to place limits on the amount of wireless services 

their children use. 

30 

Camera function limits—Wireless devices may include password protected locks 

on camera and video features. Wireless carriers offer data plans which allow parents 

to place limits on the use of e-mail and picture messaging. 

Parental notifications—Wireless carriers may offer features to notify a parent 

when a child sends or receives calls or messages from unknown sources or when 

their child’s wireless device leaves a specified area. 

Pre-approved calls—Wireless carriers may offer features which allow a child’s 

wireless device to receive or send calls or messages only to specified numbers. 

Purchase limitations—Wireless carriers offer plans and features which allow parents to place limits on the type of content a child may purchase such as music, 

games, and video. Wireless devices may also include built-in feature limitations. 

Ratings—A system for classifying and providing information about specific content 

such as games, music, video and apps. Wireless carriers and manufacturers may 

rate content or utilize existing rating systems to help parents filter content for children. 

Time of day restrictions—Wireless carriers may offer tools to limit wireless usage 

to certain periods (i.e., non-school hours). 

Educational Outreach 

Be Smart. Be Fair. Be Safe. Responsible Wireless Use—Together with kids, parents, experts and educators, The Wireless Foundation and our member companies, 

CTIA developed the Be Smart. campaign to help parents, educators and policymakers locate and utilize the tools and information necessary to ensure children 

make the right choices when using their wireless devices and services. The campaign’s cornerstone is its website (www.besmartwireless.com) which offers a tool kit 

of the parental control features and filters that are offered by the CTIA’s member 

companies and an example of family rules; educators are provided two lesson plans 

for 6th–12th grade students; and policymakers can learn more about industry initiatives as well as suggestions on what they can do to help foster the digital future. 

Get Wise About Wireless—A partnership between the Wireless Foundation and the 

Weekly Reader Corporation Consumer & Custom Publishing that equips parents 

and teachers with tips and tools to help students defeat digital bullies by practicing 

proper cell phone etiquette and safety behaviors. Educational kits sent to schools 

contain an educator guide, a family take-home pamphlet, a classroom poster and a 

student mini-magazine. (www.wirelessfoundation.org/getwise) 

On Road, Off Phone—As teens and novice drivers learn the complex task of driving a motor vehicle, safety should always come first. The wireless industry and National Safety Council urge teens to adopt an ‘‘On the Road, Off the Phone’’ philosophy to avoid the dangers of distracted driving. (www.onroadoffphone.org) 

Wireless Carrier Tools—Wireless carriers offer websites which highlight their parental empowerment tools and educate their customers about responsible wireless 

use. (http://www.besmartwireless.com/pages/toolslfromlthelwirelesslindustry) 

Partnerships 

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)—In 2008, CTIA and 

our member companies joined forces with NCMEC to keep child pornography off of 

wireless networks by creating the Wireless Child Safety Task Force, whose mission 

is to help keep wireless devices and services free of child pornography. 

Family Online Safety Institute—In 2009, CTIA and FOSI held a joint conference 

where Federal and state policymakers, industry leaders and online safety advocates 

discussed major challenges and solutions for children in the mobile environment. 

National Crime Prevention Council—The Wireless Foundation and NCPC developed the 2009–2010 Crime Prevention Month Kit: Staying Safe in a High-Tech 

World. 

National Safety Council—The wireless industry and National Safety Council 

teamed up for the driving ‘‘On the Road, Off the Phone’’ campaign. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Again, I want to thank the panel for your testimony. 

And since we have the Chairman of the Commerce Committee 

here—— 

Senator Rockefeller? 

31 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ll put my statement in the record, but I’d probably revise it to make it copy what Mr. McIntyre said. 

[Laughter.] 

[The prepared statement of Senator Rockefeller follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN D. (JAY) ROCKEFELLER IV, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA

Thank you, Senator Pryor. And thank you for all of your hard work on this important hearing. 

As Chairman of the Consumer Protection Subcommittee, you’ve been such a 

strong advocate for protecting kids and teens in our digital world. I appreciate your 

leadership on this issue. 

I know this is a concern weighing heavily on the minds of so many parents across 

America, and we are both deeply committed to doing all we can to safeguard our 

Nation’s youth. 

When most of us think of a ‘‘bully,’’ we think of a big kid picking on a smaller 

kid on the playground, or stealing his lunch at the cafeteria. 

In those scenarios, the bullying is confined to a school. There are teachers, principals and parents to turn to. 

But the Internet—and our new digital world—has changed things. It has made 

the ability to bully and harass more pervasive, more anonymous, and, in many 

ways, more insidious. 

Even in the confines of his or her own home, a child can become the victim of 

vicious e-mails, text messages, viral videos, or the subject of cruel rumors that 

spread like wildfire. 

Very tragically, such cruel behavior has, in some cases, driven some desperate 

and devastated teens to take their own lives. 

Cyberbullying is just one example of the threats our children face in our online 

world. Unfortunately, there are many more. 

The Internet, for all its good—and there really is so much good: rich resources, 

educational material, networking advances—can also be fraught with violent and 

sexually explicit sites. 

Unfortunately, many parents do not know what their children do online—or cannot comprehend the magnitude of the risks they face. 

So the questions we must answer today are: 

• What are we going to do about it? 

• How do we better protect youths in our online world? 

• And what tools can we give parents, teachers and kids to empower and protect 

themselves and their loved ones? 

I don’t pretend there’s an easy answer, but I do firmly believe we can do better— 

and can do more—to protect our youth online. 

Our efforts will require all of us—parents, the private sector, government and 

educators—to work together. 

But when the challenges we face involve the safety of our kids, we all must get 

involved. 

I believe: 

• the private sector must be more proactive in taking steps to safeguard kids’ online safety and security. 

• State and local governments must raise awareness about the problem—and 

educate and empower kids about proper and safe online behavior. 

• Congress also has a critical role to play. If companies do not act to better address children’s online needs, then Congress should. 

As long as I am Chairman of this Committee, I will continue to work toward a 

safer online environment for our kids. Inaction in the face of this growing problem 

is simply not an option. 

Thank you again, Senator Pryor, for holding this very important hearing. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. 

32 

Senator PRYOR. Well, let me go ahead and call on you to ask the 

first questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I got here after you two did. 

Senator PRYOR. Now, we—we’ve already worked it out. We insist. 

Go. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator PRYOR. You’re the Chairman. Go. It’s your turn. Am I 

going to have to hit you—— 

The CHAIRMAN. What about—— 

Senator PRYOR.—with this gavel? 

The CHAIRMAN.—ladies first? 

[Laugher.] 

Senator PRYOR. She’s fine with it. She’s fine with it, I promise. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I promise. 

Senator PRYOR. You go. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Ms. Rich, the argument is made—now, I’m very skeptical on this 

subject. And I hear Mr. Snowden talk about, ‘‘We’re doing everything we can. We’re sort of staying ahead of the curve. And, oh, by 

the way, can’t we have more government grants to educate the people?’’ And he sort of implied that they were doing everything they 

could to educate the people. And so, I guess, logically, he’d be correct—one plus one equals two. But, I think, basically, what they 

want to do is make money and that the rest of you, and this particular Senator, have a—sort of a different approach to it. 

What is the FTC’s assessment with regard to teens, 13 through 

17? We’ve agreed that kids under 13 are incapable of making, you 

know, intelligent—or mature, informed decisions. Does the same 

hold true for—on this matter, does the same hold true for 13 

through 17? 

Ms. RICH. We believe there are significant challenges, in terms 

of the impulsiveness and the judgment of teens, they’re not functioning like adults, and they don’t have the decision-making capacities of adults to protect themselves. But, in terms of the COPPA 

model and whether you can impose parental consent for teens’ use 

of technologies and the collection of information for teens, we are 

very skeptical that that model would work for teens. They have access to the Internet through all sorts of outlets outside the home. 

They’re more likely to alter their age information, in order to get 

online. They may not readily go to their parents and ask for permission. So, we don’t believe that that model would work for teens, 

but we’re happy to work with the Committee to develop appropriate protections for teens, of a different sort. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I might ask you to explain that. But, let 

me ask another question. The whole concept—and we’ve been 

through this in so many ways, on so many subjects—of parental responsibility, whether it’s the use of the remote, blocking out—listing and programming in what programs can and can’t be seen. I, 

unlike, Senator Pryor, who comes from a very large and urban and 

sophisticated state—I come from a rather small and rural state. 

And parents really don’t have a whole lot of time for that, or a 

whole lot of instinct for that, or, in many cases, any training at all 

for that. 

33 

I mean, and there’s the television set. They know how to turn it 

on and off, the way they used to work, but the whole concept of 

the technology of a remote is now extraordinary. I mean, they’re so 

large and long, have so many buttons that you actually have to get 

very conversant with them, almost talk to them, to find out where 

the mute button is. Takes—that’s probably 15 minutes just to find 

the mute button. So, expecting parents—yes, we should expect parents to do that, but is that not—maybe I should just ask you: What 

percentage of parents, roughly, in this country, would you say, are 

actively and effectively engaged in dealing with their younger children, with respect to the subject of today? 

Ms. RICH. I don’t have a figure for that, but we are—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Don’t have to. You could guess. 

Ms. RICH.—we—I really wouldn’t be able to estimate that. But, 

we are working hard to get our booklet Net Cetera, which is all 

about parents talking to their kids about the use of these technologies, into the schools. Just in the last 10 months, we’ve distributed 3.7 million of them. One came home in my 12-year-old’s backpack, and he gave it to me, and we talked about it. We’d already 

talked about those things. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, you work for the FTC. I would have hoped 

you would have talked to him—— 

Ms. RICH. Right. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. RICH.—and we intend to do that. That being said, I agree 

that education is not the only solution, because people are busy. 

There’s more that could be done. Mr. Snowden talked about controls on cell phones. I think more could be done to educate parents 

about those controls, because I think phones provide the unique opportunity to add controls at the outset, because parents still pay for 

most phones. And, I know, when I got my 12-year-old a cell phone, 

I was not told about all of the defaults that I could set, and, as a 

result, we got home, and he was on the Internet and using all sorts 

of games that I did not think I got with my phone, and was very 

unhappy about. 

In addition, enforcement is hugely important in this area. And 

the FTC has a long record of enforcement against companies that 

misused children and teens information. GeoCities, Liberty Financial, Toysmart, Gateway—I could name a lot of cases. And, most recently, we sent a letter to a company that was potentially planning 

to release very sensitive information about gay youth, the XY Company. So, enforcement is also very important in this area. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Ms. Rich, my time has run out, but I just— 

I want to take the concept that this is not just another subject that 

we’re talking about. I think this is a game-changer, in terms of the 

values that our children will grow up with and carry on. What Mr. 

McIntyre or Ms. Collins, either one of them, or both of them, said, 

reading is no longer, sort of, appropriate behavior; thinking is not 

necessarily appropriate behavior, you have to do some of it at 

school, but you certainly don’t have to do it when you’re, you know, 

doing what we’re talking about here, or watching television, you 

just watch, somebody else thinks for you. And I really—I think it’s 

a huge problem for our culture and for our future, because we are 

so open and so free and so noninterventionist. People can take adVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
34 

vantage of vulnerability, at great profit, and yet not be tagged with 

being, themselves, purveyors or encouragers of predatory or bullying or whatever type behavior. 

I think we have to think very seriously about whether we can let 

people continue to think that way. It’s not just a matter of educating people what they could do, but it’s a matter of scaring the 

heck out of people about what’s going to happen to—what is happening to their kids, that they don’t know about. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Senator Wicker. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER F. WICKER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MISSISSIPPI 

Senator WICKER. Well, I think I will follow the Chair’s lead and 

insert my statement in the record. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Wicker follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER F. WICKER, U.S. SENATOR FROM MISSISSIPPI

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on protecting young Americans in an online world. This is a very important topic, which deserves and requires 

continuing research and investigation if we are to keep up with the ever-changing 

Internet. It is also an issue that I know you and I both are interested in personally, 

and I commend you for your commitment and determination to ensure that our 

youth are protected online. I look forward to continuing to work with you to find 

the best way we can assist educators, industry, and most importantly parents in 

keeping their children safe online. 

The Internet is unquestionably one of the marvels of modern times. Accessing the 

World Wide Web has impacted our daily lives as much as nearly any technological 

achievement in history. Education, entertainment, travel, commerce and even 

health care have all been revolutionized by the Internet’s influence. Access to online 

content has gone from a luxury to a virtual necessity in the classroom, boardroom, 

and even the offices of the Capitol. One of the most critical components to the Internet’s success has been its dynamic nature. It is changing and growing constantly, 

unencumbered by unnecessary regulation and driven to provide a better product 

that meets increasing consumer demand. However, this continuous evolution also 

presents one of the Internet’s biggest challenges. 

Keeping pace with technological changes is a difficulty that many industries face. 

It seems that almost every day a new service, application or product is unveiled that 

is a little faster, better, and more complicated than those we were using yesterday. 

This presents new and unique challenges in efforts to ensure that online technologies are safe for children. We continue to search for the right balance that will 

ensure safety without unnecessarily restricting development of beneficial products. 

Finding that balance is especially challenging when we are discussing content 

viewed and used by people of all ages. 

Children today are interacting in new ways online and often are providing the 

content themselves. Through mobile broadband and texts, many of today’s children 

are connected to each other and the Internet. This fact was underscored in a recent 

report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which found that 72 percent 

of teens use text messages and almost 60 percent of 12-year-olds own a cell phone. 

Gone are the days when the best advice to parents for protecting their children 

online was to monitor their child’s activity by putting the family computer in a visible location in the house. Today, parents must get involved directly and talk with 

children about what they are doing online and how to do it safely. One problem is 

that most parents know less about these technologies than their children. We must 

all work together not only to equip parents with the best tools to keep their children 

safe but also the knowledge to use the tools effectively and to talk to their kids 

about safe behavior online. 

Industry, child advocacy groups, and relevant government agencies have made 

great strides studying the online dangers for youth, and in finding ways to protect 

children. Several of our witnesses participated in the Online Safety and Technology 

Working Group, which recently published a report titled ‘‘Youth Safety on a Living 

35 

Internet.’’ This report acknowledged that there is no one silver bullet answer for 

keeping children safe online. 

I am particularly interested in the report’s finding that there are numerous tools 

available for parents but more needs to be done to improve awareness and usage 

of these resources. That is one area I would like to explore further with our witnesses today. Working together, what can we do to help parents better understand 

the problems they are facing? What tools are available to help them? And how do 

we encourage parents to utilize these tools? 

I want to thank all our witnesses for being with us today and sharing your expertise on this topic. 

Senator WICKER. Thank you, to the Chairman of the Subcommittee, particularly for the efficient way in which he has run 

this hearing today, getting it started as the vote was going, and 

moving it along at an efficient pace. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

for your concern with this. And my statement in the record will 

stand. 

I hope it’s still all right for Americans to make money in this industry. Mr. Nigam, I would assume that the people at MySpace 

don’t mind making a dollar, either. I think there’s a way for innovation and investment and job creation to occur in this industry 

while still protecting children and young people, and I hope we can 

do that. 

I appreciate the testimony of all of you. 

Let me just ask this, and I’ll start down here with Mr. Snowden, 

and maybe people can respond if they disagree. I’m trying to figure 

out where we might have differences of approach on the panel. 

Mr. Snowden, you say, ‘‘We look forward to working with this 

committee to craft policies which properly balance the need, on the 

one hand, for flexibility in responding quickly to behavioral, technological, and market changes, with concerns’’—and I’m paraphrasing 

your words—‘‘concerns for safety.’’ So, what are your specific concerns there, Mr. Snowden, that might upset the balance between 

the need for flexibility in innovation and safety? 

And also, you say, ‘‘The wireless industry believes, with voluntary initiatives and strategic collaborations, we’ll continue to ensure delivery of benefits of wireless products and services to all 

Americans.’’ 

What gives you pause, Mr. Snowden, beyond voluntary initiatives 

that might have a stifling effect on innovation and keeping the 

United States on the cutting edge of this industry? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Thank you very much for your question, sir. I 

think the short answer is: I’m not sure if there is large scale or any 

disagreement among any of us. We work collaboratively with just 

about everyone on this panel. And I’ve just met Mr. McIntyre 

today, but I look forward to working with him as we go forward. 

In terms of our concern, is—and I think you saw this in the 

Working Group’s report—there is no-one-size-fits all. And if you 

take the mobile space, and you say, ‘‘Well, you need to do this,’’ 

the—you treat the mobile community the same way you treat the 

online community, versus e-mail or whatever it might be, or television—it’s not going to work. And I think—we spent a whole year 

debating this issue of, Is there one way to do this? And at conclusion, as you saw in the Working Group that you saw from Hemu, 

is that there isn’t one way to do it. 

36 

And I think, from our standpoint, we’re not in this to make 

money, in terms of on the backs of exploiting children. That is not 

our goal. We saw the headlights of what was going on in other industries when we began to watch our industry grow and explode, 

in terms of the technology. And one of the things that we did immediately, for example, is we started working with the National 

Center for Missing & Exploited Children on child pornography. We 

wanted to make sure that wasn’t on our networks. We began to 

work with the FTC. We began to work with other parties so that 

we could make sure we were smart on these issues, so that we can 

protect kids. 

A lot of this is behavior of children that’s facilitated by various 

products that are out there. We look at it from a three-pronged way 

that takes education, it takes the law, it takes technology. And so, 

there is not just one way to do it. It’s everything, working together. 

Senator WICKER. Anybody wish to take issue with Mr. Snowden 

in that regard? Follow-ups? 

Mr. NIGAM. Yes. 

Senator WICKER. Mr. Nigam? 

Mr. NIGAM. I noticed you kept looking at me, so I assume that’s 

a hint to say something. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NIGAM. Senator, what I want to point out—I actually want 

to step back and try to frame the discussion a little bit. And it’s 

partly in response to what you said, but partly in response to what 

Chairman Rockefeller also said. 

When we looked at these issues—and I, for one, have looked at 

them for many years—one thing that’s become very clear is this, 

and this is the pain point for parents. 

And I know, I was asked to let you know that I’m speaking on 

behalf of myself rather than News Corporation and—during the 

question session. 

Parents are looking at technology and saying, ‘‘It’s that thing 

that my kids know, and I know nothing about.’’ And then they’re 

making a jump to a conclusion, which they don’t need to make, but 

they’re doing it. And that is, ‘‘My kids know that technology. I 

don’t. And therefore, I cannot raise them, when it comes to technology.’’ And, I think what we have to do is help parents understand that, as parents, they still have the right, the power, and the 

ability to educate their teens and their kids about safety, just like 

they did from the day their baby was brought home from the hospital. When they did it with the cribs and teaching them. Then 

they did it with the parks. Then they did it when they sent their 

13-year-old to the mall and said, ‘‘You’re not going to do this. 

You’re going to stick with your group. You’re not going to talk to 

strangers. You’re not going to disclose info.’’ Things like that. And 

what you’ll find is, the lessons they’ve been teaching all along, if 

they continue to teach that in these new mediums, whatever they 

are—it doesn’t even matter what they are—those lessons apply perfectly well. 

And the second thing you find is that teens and kids actually 

learn them. We often think they don’t, but they do. They learn how 

to look both ways when they cross the street. They learn how to 

avoid that creepy guy in the mall or tell somebody there’s someVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
37 

body in the mall that they want to stay away from. They learn 

those things. 

And then, from a purely business perspective, what’s really interesting is, oftentimes people have a feeling, ‘‘Businesses got to make 

money, got to make money, got to make money.’’ What’s really interesting here, in the safety area particularly, is that in—businesses actually benefit by doing the right thing—tremendously. 

And they benefit because their reputation is at stake, and nobody 

wants their reputation to be tied to predators and other misconduct 

as, ‘‘That’s the business where you find that.’’ VCs won’t invest in 

businesses like that. Advertisers won’t advertise and align their, 

you know, billion-dollar-supported brands with businesses with 

reputation issues or criminal issues and things like that. 

So, there’s actually an incentive, from day one, to focus on Business 101. And that is, you can do the right thing, and you will be 

doing the right thing for your business. So, from that perspective, 

I go back to what I’ve said before in other settings, and that is: 

Look at this issue from the perspective of, How do you build a town 

into a city, into a country, into a state, and look at all the different 

things you do there, and take those same learnings and start applying them in this area, and help people understand that they can 

actually do that and succeed that way? 

Senator PRYOR. Senator Klobuchar. 

STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And 

thank you for convening this important hearing. 

As a parent of a 15-year-old that just did her birthday invitations 

by Facebook, I know how technology has changed our children’s 

lives. The Pew Internet in American Life Project documented that 

73 percent of American teens now use social networking website, 

up from 55 percent, 2 years ago. So, I think it’s no surprise, with 

that exponential growth, that we are looking at this and trying to 

figure out new ways to respond. The same study found that 83 percent of 17-year-olds, and nearly 60 percent of 12-year-olds, own a 

cell phone. 

So, my question, first, is—in fact, just this morning, I sent a letter to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, asking about the feasibility of adding a safety button to Facebook pages of kids under the 

age of 18. 

On Monday, Facebook partnered with a child protection agency 

to create a panic-button application for users in the United Kingdom, but this application is not available in the U.S. There is a 

Help button on the pages, but it doesn’t—you have to go through 

two clicks to get to any security information. And, in my opinion, 

a prominent button or link, given some of the numbers that we’re 

seeing in the numbers with predators on the Internet, would make 

this a sensible way to handle this, for kids who have no idea what 

they’re getting into, often. 

How readily available, do you think—and anyone can answer 

this—if you want to start, Ms. Collins, because the group that they 

partnered with in the U.K. was similar to your group—how readily 

available are public safety materials to teenagers online? Do you 

38 

think children know and understand the basic risk and threat? As 

you know, most children don’t always report the threats to law enforcement. And how can we better get information to teens and 

parents? And does this type of thing going on in the U.K. make 

sense? 

Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Senator. Those are excellent questions. 

One of the most important things, in the online world and the 

various platforms that children and adults are using, is the ability 

to be able to report incidents that they find disturbing or harmful, 

possibly illegal, in an easy-to-do-format, an easy-to-do way. Most 

companies have an Abuse button, some sort of policy and procedure 

in place, but if it’s not easy for the user to do, they’re not going 

to report it. In most cases, as you mentioned, very often they won’t 

report the incident in the first place. So, the availability of a prominent and easy-to-use, easy-to-find Abuse button, Report button is 

very important. 

There have been discussions, amongst the industry and amongst 

child protection groups, about the importance of really having some 

sort of—essentially, if you can imagine a ‘‘splash’’ page, because 

there are many resources that are really necessary for families to 

be able to access. Certainly, in my world, it’s the sexual predation 

of children by adults and others. But, of course, there are other 

issues that people encounter on social networking sites, on the 

Internet, in general, whether it be, you know, potential domestic violence that they are witnessing information on; suicide; bullying; 

you know, gender identity issues—that there are many qualified 

and very good entities out there that we need to be able to find 

some way to be able to easily point parents, children, concerned 

members of the public—when they see an incident, something they 

find disturbing, something they want to report, that they can easily 

access the reputable entities that they would then be able to make 

a report to. And working across the industry to do such an initiative, I think, would be very important, because we need to make 

it easy for people to report something if they find it disturbing or 

harmful. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. So, the easier it—and the more obvious 

that it’s more available, the better it is for those that could be the 

victims of predators. 

Ms. COLLINS. Well, most companies—yes—most companies also 

have abuse and compliance teams. Most of the large players have 

compliance teams that also take reports and—because people really 

do report many different types of abuse, whether it be language, 

whether it be content, and, of course, predation. And those companies will make reports regarding the sexual predation of children 

and online child pornography to the National Center for Missing & 

Exploited Children. 

But, to your point, accessibility and ease of use is critical. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. That’s why I was focused on that. And 

we hope we can work with them on this. 

One issue that hasn’t been discussed is peer-to-peer file sharing 

and the privacy concerns that arise when kids use these programs. 

As you know, these programs are popular with children and teenagers because they can download songs and movies to their computer. Oftentimes, however, children will share personal files, such 

39 

as family photos, home movies, family documents, and there are 

many cases of predators using peer-to-peer networks to download 

pornographic materials and target kids. 

Senator Thune and I have recently introduced legislation that attempts to address the problem of inadvertent sharing on file-sharing networks. I did an event at—actually, at Best Buy, with a number of victims, not child victims, but people who had just simply 

gone home to work on their computer, put all the documents from 

their employer on there as they were working on it. They didn’t 

know that their kid had one of these peer-to-peer file-sharing programs on the Internet, and suddenly all of their company’s private 

employee data was stolen and where they became victims of identity theft. We had a number of cases like this. 

So, if anyone wants to comment on the peer-to-peer issue. 

Ms. Rich? 

Ms. RICH. Yes, Senator, this is a hugely important area. And if 

you talk to people who monitor this area, they say that the amount 

of information—sensitive information flowing over the peer-to-peer 

networks is enormous. We recently did a sweep and sent warning 

letters to many dozens of companies whose sensitive information 

was exposed over the networks, probably for the same reason you 

were just describing, which is, their employees downloaded it, 

maybe at home, or their kids did, and then all this sensitive information—tax records, health information, financial records—was exposed. 

So, it’s a hugely important area. And I know you have been 

working on a bill, that we support, that provides greater transparency for this, and warnings. And we’re very supportive. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Anyone else want to add anything? 

[No response.] 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. All right. Thank you very much. 

Senator PRYOR. Thank you. 

Ms. Rich, let me start with you, if I may. And I have a copy of 

your Net Cetera publication here. And I’m just curious—I don’t 

know, really, how to ask this, other than say, kind of, on a scale 

of 1 to 10, how successful do you think this effort has been? And 

I guess, also, what kind of feedback are you hearing from people 

on it? 

Ms. RICH. Well, it’s interesting you should use that number, because we actually do have an online survey we use for our 

‘‘OnGuard Online,’’ of which this is part, and have asked consumers, or users, to rate it on a scale of, well, 1 to 100. And it’s 

at 79 percent, which is higher than the information provided on 

other government websites. If you take into account the reach 

we’ve obtained through this, I think we’re very pleased with where 

we are. As I said earlier, in less than 10 months, we distributed 

over 3.7 million. And when one school district finds out another one 

has distributed it, they call us up and ask for it. So, every week, 

we take a tabulation, and it rises. So, we’re very pleased with how 

it’s going, and we intend to find additional outlets to distribute it. 

Senator PRYOR. Great. 

Mr. Nigam, let me ask you, if I may, about the children who are 

online and—you may not be qualified to give, like, a psychological 

profile, but what kind of—you know, what—is there a pattern out 

40 

there about who does the bullying and who gets bullied the most? 

Or is it just kind of a random selection of kids? 

Mr. NIGAM. Chairman Pryor, I have four children, so I can probably create psychological profiles of children. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator PRYOR. I understand. 

Mr. NIGAM. But, that said, in particular, what the research has— 

and this is research done in four different, I think, specialists doing 

research, and they all came to the same conclusion, which is really 

an eye opener, and that is, kids who are at risk in the physical 

world are the exact same kids who are at risk online. Those who 

engage in bullying activity in the physical world are the same ones 

who will engage in bullying activity online. Those who get bullied 

in the physical world will also be the ones who will get bullied online. 

And what this has done is, in essence, confirmed that the physical and the online have really become one. And, I think, as long 

as we’re focused on treating them separately and finding separate 

solutions, we’re actually missing an opportunity, and that is to 

really look at it from that larger 50,000-foot context and say, ‘‘Is 

there more that needs to be done in the physical side?’’ And, if it’s 

going to be done, apply that, and make sure it gets applied online. 

If you find a kid who’s bullied or a child, in the physical side, then 

start engaging and saying, ‘‘That could also be happening online’’; 

and vice versa on the bully, which is, if they’re doing it in the 

bully—if your school is saying your child is causing trouble, or another parent is saying that, well, then also start considering, ‘‘Are 

they doing that and extending it to the online environment?’’ because, more than likely, that’s going to be true. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Let me ask you a different question, and 

that is—you mentioned, in your statement, that MySpace provides 

to parents and teens and school officials some sort of guide. Is it 

a written guide? 

Mr. NIGAM. Yes. 

Senator PRYOR. And wouldn’t it be more effective, and perhaps 

the most effective, if there was something very clear at the point 

of use, you know, there on MySpace itself, online, that the kids and 

the parents somehow could utilize. And—or do you already do that? 

Mr. NIGAM. Actually, Senator, we have a section on 

myspace.com/safety that is designed specifically for parents, for— 

and another section for teens, and one for educators—— 

Senator PRYOR. But—— 

Mr. NIGAM.—that has the guides for downloading. And on every 

page, including the front page of the site, there is a Safety button 

that takes you—— 

Senator PRYOR. OK. 

Mr. NIGAM.—to all the right places. 

Senator PRYOR. That’s really was what I was asking, because—— 

Mr. NIGAM. Right. 

Senator PRYOR.—I know a lot of companies are well-intentioned, 

but you’ve got to click and follow certain links to get where you 

need to be. And what you’re saying, on MySpace, it is there on 

every page, so they can easily get to it if they need to. 

41 

Mr. NIGAM. Right. And this ties exactly back to—from a purely 

business perspective, it builds reputation with your user base, it 

builds trust, it’s good for business, it’s the right thing to do. And 

that’s a good example of why you should do that, whatever business you are. 

Senator PRYOR. OK. Great. 

Ms. Collins, let me switch to you, if I may, and that is, What are 

your recommendations on how to generate more awareness about 

safety resources that are already available to parents and children? 

I mean, my experience is, most parents really don’t have a real 

good idea that some of these resources are available. So, how do 

you think we can best get that word out in the most effective way? 

Ms. COLLINS. I think it’s an excellent question. And, you know, 

I’ve participated and gone out to some schools in the evenings or 

on weekends to do parent events, to talk about Internet safety. 

And, unfortunately, you usually get the same parents who are 

probably pretty engaged in their children’s lives at that time also. 

There are many, many good resources out there for parents, including NetSmartz411, which explains technology in very easy-tounderstand language. But, we—you know, all of us, everyone continues to put parents right there at the front line in order to educate their children, but they don’t necessarily have the tools of 

what they need to educate them on. 

I think that, just off the top of my head, one of the interesting 

ways that—maybe would be, rather than expecting the parents to 

be coming into the schools in the evenings or on the weekends and 

so forth, bring it into the workplaces. Bring in some of the information, bring it to them, rather than expect them to come to an event 

at the schools. 

I think the schools still, though, are front-line for getting information home to the families. And I agree with much of what Mr. 

Nigam was saying about making sure that we teach these overarching lessons of safety, rather than teaching to a specific technology, because the one guarantee we have is, it’s going to be different in 2 years. 

Senator PRYOR. What is the—from your standpoint, Ms. Collins, 

what’s the most alarming trend that you’re seeing, in terms of, you 

know, children being targeted or, you know, just prevalent problems on the Internet with kids? What’s the most alarming trend 

that you’re seeing? 

Ms. COLLINS. The trend that we’re seeing most, just in the last 

year and a half, 2 years, are the teens creating sexually explicit 

material of themselves and sending it to others online. We have 

many cases, and you can pretty much speak with law enforcement 

across the country working these cases. And they’re challenged 

with these cases, not only on how to respond as a law enforcement 

officer, but how to intervene with the families. Kids who are producing very sexually explicit materials, sending it to their boyfriends/girlfriends, posting it up on their social networking pages, 

many of them, you know, the distribution may occur within a small 

group of their friends or their school, but we’ve heard from so many 

kids and teens, the humiliation the long-term impact of it. 

And, in fact, there are more cases that we’re hearing about, 

across the country, where a child may put something explicit of 

42 

themselves somewhere online, I take it down, send it around the 

Internet, and someone then can use that to blackmail the child. 

And we’re seeing those cases, really, across the country and around 

the world. And the hard part then is, When is the child going to 

be able to tell somebody and report it? 

So, I think, right now, the most obvious trend for us is the kids 

who are using this technology now, lots of technology, lots of privacy, they’re at a sexually curious age, and making some poor decisions. 

Senator PRYOR. Right. 

Well, listen. I’m going to call on Chairman Rockefeller, and he’s 

actually going to take over chairing the hearing for me. 

So, thank you very much for your time. 

The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. For a price. 

Senator PRYOR. Yes, I understand. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s a busy time here. 

The—Mr. Snowden, do you think that—one of the things we’ve 

done here in the Commerce Committee is to say that you cannot 

text or cannot use a cell phone while you’re driving. And—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. And we support that. 

The CHAIRMAN. That wasn’t my question. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. OK. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The—do you think that—you see, it keeps on 

growing. People, they may know that it’s a—it has nothing to do 

with bullying or exploitation, but it’s just endangerment of other 

people, including the other person in the car that you’re driving or 

the car that you hit. Five thousand people a year, maybe more than 

that, die; and I think there’s something like—I think it’s something 

like 50,000 a year are wounded, maimed, or whatever, as a result 

of that behavior. 

Now, in this committee, we’ve sort of agreed that that should be 

illegal. In other words, the government is intervening in a behavioral matter, having nothing to do with kids, you know, up to the 

age of 17, by definition, but people much more mature than that 

who are doing something which is lethal. And so, we would have 

the choice, I suppose, of saying, ‘‘Well, in time, this is going to be 

apparent.’’ And to which my answer is, ‘‘No, it wouldn’t be apparent. People just keep on dying, because texting is—you know, is 

just necessary to so many people.’’ And so, the government has to 

intervene. 

Now, why do you think it is that the government has to intervene in a mature situation leading to a bad or lethal result, in 

many cases, and many, many very close misses—why is it that the 

government has to intervene, probably, in that? And, you say—I 

didn’t ask you, but you said you were in support of that. And that’s 

not—that has the same sort of parallel logic involved in it as the 

subject that we’re talking about, which, in fact, worries me much 

more, for the long-term health of the country. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. If I’m following you correctly, sir, the—where we 

support is—and we’ve put, as you put it earlier, money behind it 

by doing a PSA on driving, ‘‘On The Road, Off The’’—‘‘On The 

Phone, Off The Road Campaign’’ about text messaging. We don’t 

43 

want people doing that. And what states have done around the 

country is made the behavior illegal. And I think what we’re seeing 

here in this context of what young people are doing is—the question that you’re asking me is, Should that be illegal? 

The CHAIRMAN. No. I’m saying don’t you think it was appropriate—it’s appropriate for the government to have to intervene 

and make it illegal, with penalties? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. It depends what you mean by—what the government’s saying is—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you’re—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—illegal. 

The CHAIRMAN.—caught texting or using a cell phone in a car. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. And we—we’ve—I have, personally, written letters to—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So, what’s the—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—in—— 

The CHAIRMAN.—difference? 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—support of this in—— 

The CHAIRMAN. What’s the difference? That’s the lesser evil than 

what we’re talking about at this hearing, to me. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. What is the difference—— 

The CHAIRMAN. What we’re talking about—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—between—— 

The CHAIRMAN.—at this hearing shapes the future of the way 

children grow up to be adults. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. What I’m not following, sir, is—you’re saying—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I’ll try somebody else, then. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Well—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Rich, maybe you can respond. 

Ms. RICH. Well, can I translate for him? 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. RICH. What he’s saying is that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. No, no. I don’t ask you to translate me—— 

Ms. RICH. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN.—to him. I asked you to—— 

Ms. RICH. You want me to answer it? 

The CHAIRMAN.—answer my question. 

Ms. RICH. You’re saying these consequences are even far more 

serious than the texting—— 

The CHAIRMAN. For the long-term, I think. 

Ms. RICH.—because we’re shaping the minds of youth—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Ms. RICH.—and the safety of youth. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Ms. RICH. So, we, at the FTC, would agree that the privacy and 

safety of teens is immensely important, and that’s why we’ve done 

all the efforts that I described earlier. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. And may I go back to this, sir? 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, you can try again. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Sure. 

The CHAIRMAN. Neither of us are doing very well. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Well, we’re not disagreeing with you. We’re not 

disagreeing with anything you’re saying. What I was trying to understand before I answered your question clearly was, Are you sayVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
44 

ing that the behavior that—of sexting should be made illegal, are 

you saying that the behavior of cyberbullying should be made illegal? And, in that case, particularly cyberbullying, there are cases— 

that is illegal. I mean, States’ attorneys have already—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I mean, I—I’d take it in a different—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.——. So, we support that. 

The CHAIRMAN.—direction. I would say—and, you know, I’m 

pretty hardcore on all of this. I don’t have a whole lot of tolerance. 

I mean, when the good Senator from Mississippi said—turned the 

hearing from something about, ‘‘Are we getting in the way of innovation in technology?’’—not seeming to understand that this is 

about sexual predating and bullying and all kinds of things. And 

people—I mean, I—you know, the Internet, to me, is very interesting. 

There’s nobody here, so I can just talk as long as I want. The—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s very interesting. The Internet was a magnificent discovery. Everybody lives and dies by it. At the very same 

time that we’re spending a great deal of time on this committee 

and on the Intelligence Committee, in which I also serve, working 

on something called Cybersecurity. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Cybersecurity has everything to do with the destruction—the physical destruction or shutdown of the a nation, or 

large sectors of a nation, at will, by a 14-year-old kid in Indonesia 

or a state—a hostile state in some other part of the world, so that 

the Internet there becomes, in fact, both President Bush’s, the last 

one, and Obama’s Director of National Intelligence have identified 

cybersecurity as the national—the major national security threat, 

more than plutonium, more than dirty bombs, more than all kinds 

of other things. So, that’s one iteration of the Internet. 

Then we come to what we’re discussing today. So, you know, ‘‘We 

should do more—get out more of these pamphlets,’’ I don’t disagree 

with. But, I want to hear out of your words, the folks who produce 

this—not produce it, but who produce the instruments that allow 

it, is a more aggressive attitude about intervention. Now, I don’t 

think you can—you can’t monitor what kids are doing, but there 

has to be—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Correct. 

The CHAIRMAN.—some hookup—and maybe, Mr. McIntyre and 

Ms. Collins, you could help me on this—where people are—they 

pay a penalty. I mean, surely, if they are turned in or it could be 

verified, that their cell phone is shut down for a week—I’m talking 

about something which sort of says, ‘‘Uh, this is important. This is 

not acceptable.’’ And I don’t know exactly what it is. 

But, just—you know, I can remember when Jack Watson was 

President of the Motion Picture Association. They were—and I was 

furious about motion picture indecency and violence and all the 

rest of it, and the way it’s going. And he kept talking about a $500- 

million TV—national TV advertising program which he was going 

to do. And I was on this committee at the time, and so, he brought 

this magnificent work into reality and showed it to this committee. 

I didn’t want to watch it, because I thought it was such a fraud, 

that they were, sort of, buying their way out by buying—putting 

45 

down X hundreds of millions of dollars, out of their trillions, for national advertising on ‘‘Don’t be sexual,’’ ‘‘Don’t be violent,’’ ‘‘Don’t be 

explicit.’’ And there’s some evidence to show that, in the war 

against drunk driving, it had—other effects of that sort had some 

effect emanating from the government, not from the industry trying to protect its own future. But—and then he wanted to come 

show it to me in my office, and I wouldn’t see it. 

It was not a serious attempt on the part of the movie industry, 

in that case, to monitor its own content. I could say the same thing 

to the cable companies. They do not seriously monitor their content. They say, ‘‘We do what the watchers want. We give them 

what they want.’’ That is ridiculous. They give them what they 

teach their watchers to want to want. That’s not Shakespeare, but 

it’s very clear to me. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. And that’s the way this world works. That’s the 

way money speaks. That’s what Wall Street does. That’s what people who have do to people who don’t have. Now, that’s a little bit 

broad, but you understand. I’m very angry and passionate on this 

issue. 

So, I look at you and I think, ‘‘Well, we’re doing the best we can 

to try, and we’re putting out little pamphlets, or we’re putting 

out—sending stuff to schools,’’ all of which sounds to me wholly in 

adequate when you’re dealing with teenage basic, you know, sexual 

instincts, bullying instincts, ‘‘I’ve got to be stronger than the next 

fellow.’’ Did you see the movie ‘‘Doubt’’? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I did. 

The CHAIRMAN. Did you remember the African-American boy 

who was bullied because he was African American? That made a 

profound impact on me. He was totally helpless. And it took a 

Priest to come pick up his stuff that was dumped on the floor. He 

was bullied. 

I cannot tolerate that kind of thing in the world that I want my 

children to live in. And so, maybe I’ll just address to the panel, so 

I can just stop talking, What is the best approach to this? A serious, aggressive approach. 

We have an Intelligence Committee, and we have an intelligence 

community, which assumes bad behavior, well proven throughout 

all of the centuries, from one country to another, or countries within countries to that country, as we now have, you know, cells that 

are made up of Americans trying to damage their own country’s 

government. And then we have a military. And the Intelligence 

Committee informs the military, in case it gets to that stage. We 

don’t take chances on things that are a matter of national security. 

In this case, I’m saying the future of what goes on in the minds, 

or does not go on in the minds, of our children—our young children—is a matter of enormous importance, if not national security, 

you know, currently defined. 

I—to me, it’s a terribly important matter, and I think your answer to it is within the classic bounds of a sense of corporate responsibility. You want to do the right thing—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Correct. 

The CHAIRMAN.—but it just never ends up being effective 

enough, quick enough. And I don’t think we have a whole lot of 

46 

time. And, actually, I don’t want you to answer this. I want Mr. 

McIntyre—I just pick on you, Mr. Snowden, and I get my answers 

from the others. 

Ms. Collins, Mr. McIntyre, could you give me some help on this? 

And I do it—I mean, I do it—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. I’d like to offer some, as well, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. And you will have a chance. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. OK. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Senator. It’s hard to know where to 

pick a starting point on this, because there are so many different 

places we could make an impact. 

I wholeheartedly agree, from my experience in working with Mr. 

Valenti and the television industry on the efforts that we’ve experienced there, and that we continue to experience. I sit on the Oversight Monitoring Board for the Television Rating System, which is 

mostly just concerned with coming up with a better PSA. And it 

makes no impact at all. That group hasn’t even met since 2008, 

and we’ve experienced a lot of difficulties in trying to move that aspect of media forward. 

If I may offer, it seems to me that, when we talk about these 

issues, we tend to still focus on mostly a market-based approach to 

this. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it is short-sighted to only have a market-based approach to this. As I have said 

repeatedly, media, for us, in the Children’s Media Policy Coalition 

and the groups we represent, is a kids’ health issue. The exposure 

to media impacts children’s behavior regarding their health. It impacts their physical health, their sexual health, their mental 

health. It is the most dominant environment they’re in, right now, 

that it—that impacts their health. 

The CHAIRMAN. And you’re including the Internet—— 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Yes. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN.—and cell phones among those. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Absolutely. All media in this. 

If you look at trying to impact health behavior using a marketbased approach—and I’m not antimarket when I’m saying this— 

but, just from a more objective analytical perspective, a marketbased approach tends to be reactive. Something happens, then the 

market reacts around it, and you get this kind of slow trickle effect 

when that occurs. That’s totally inadequate when it comes to a 

health-based effect, especially for children, which are not small 

adults. They’re different, and they’re different, developmentally, 

well into their teen years. 

What is most successful in health-based communities is a prevention approach. You know, we don’t want to wait for the disease 

to happen, and then have to continue to treat it. We really haven’t 

done much there. 

And so, it’s a real struggle to try to get the media environment 

involved in that. Yes, it takes all of these great programs that 

these individuals have talked about to be able have. We need pamphlets. We need education. We need the PSAs. But, it is—I think 

I could best say, it’s, at best, a good half-step. There has to be other 

things. 

We need—most of the agreements on privacy right now are optout agreements. We need to be able to have an opt-in agreement, 

47 

with informed consent by the people that are participating in that. 

And ‘‘informed consent’’ is a very specific technical legal term that 

the health community uses that assumes autonomy and informs in 

a certain—what’s the other word that I’ve got—assumes a certain 

ability to be able pursue malpractice, should that be violated. 

And so, yes, I think we’ve got lots of other options here, but, you 

know, when we have another great pamphlet given to us, it really 

becomes kind of frustrating. We’re not against the pamphlets; we 

just think it’s a really small half-step to go forward with. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Collins? 

Ms. COLLINS. Senator, we’re—we review child pornography, sexually explicit images and videos, day in and day out. We’ve received 

over 140,000—or, I’m sorry, 940,000 CyberTipline reports regarding 

child sexual exploitation over the last 12 years. The numbers continue to skyrocket. The problem of child pornography, you know, 

from very, very little children certainly through the teens, you 

know, with the creating sexually explicit material and so forth. 

The type of behavior that we see the teens engaging in, taking 

these sexually explicit images and videos, they’re modeling it after 

what they see and what they’re surrounded by. One of the initiatives—it’s a little off point with what you asked, but one of the initiatives that I did want to tell you about, that you may or may not 

be familiar with—the National Center, during the course of operating the CyberTipline, we come across, every single day, active 

child pornography websites, that are hosted anywhere in the world, 

that contain vile, reprehensible images of children being sexually 

abused or exploited. 

We make available, to participating electronic service providers 

here in the U.S.—those who wish to be engaged, more involved in 

ensuring that they’re not easily facilitating transmission or access 

to these types of websites—we make available, every single day, a 

list of active child pornography Web pages, so they can—basically, 

provide them the tools that they can do more to try to reduce further proliferation of these images. Many of these children who have 

been sexually abused, their abusers are long gone and in jail, but 

their images continue to circulate on the Internet. And industry 

really can do a lot to try to reduce that. 

In addition, we provide industry participating members with 

hash values, which are basically digital signatures of photographs 

of child victims of pornography. Some of the—again, some of these 

children, you know, their abusers are long gone, but their images 

and their revictimization continues to happen every single day. We 

provide these tools to the industry, on a voluntary basis, asking 

them to do what they can to try to reduce the further distribution 

of these images—not only because it’s the right and legal thing to 

do, but also because it’s really a victim- rights issue, that something awful happened to a child, and we really should do everything that we can to try to reduce that victimization in the future. 

So, we do have initiatives—voluntary initiatives with companies 

here in the U.S., trying to exchange information. We provide information to other law enforcement agencies overseas, really to try to 

do—approach it from many different angles. Certainly, law enforcement arrests the people who are abusing our children; try to educate the kids and the parents and the community at large about, 

48 

‘‘These are the things you need to watch for. If something happens, 

please report it’’; and, finally, working with the industry, trying to 

give tools, also, that they will be able to do more, really trying impact it from many different levels. 

Ms. RICH. Mr.—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Mr. Chairman, may I—— 

Ms. RICH. We’re all—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—may I address it, as well—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—sir? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, you can, in a minute. Two things on my 

mind. 

I have held so many roundtable or, you know, classroom discussions with superintendents and parents and psychologists and 

teachers and students all over West Virginia. I mean, this is a 

very, very big subject, as far as I’m concerned. And I really have 

the feeling that those meetings, when you put them all together, 

have made virtually no difference at all. Because the parents who 

came were the ones who—you know, the—we asked parents, or we 

asked the school to pick parents. And so, maybe they picked, you 

know, the most with-it, tech-savvy parents, or maybe they pick 

really good parents. But, I think the—my impression is that most 

of the parents of most of the kids don’t show up at those things because they—they’re scared to, because they would show that they 

didn’t know how to do the remote-control stuff, much less how do 

you intervene in—you know, in something which goes up on a blog, 

or whatever. And, you know, on blogs, you can take things down. 

You can take things down. 

So, can you just discuss—and then I’ll get to you, Mr. Snowden— 

can you—any of you discuss the taking down—and somebody, a 

moment ago, suggested liability, suing. Boy, that’s a stopper. That’s 

a national attention-getter, too. Now, I don’t know—would you— 

you wouldn’t it on the kid, I think you’d do it on the ISP. I mean, 

I don’t know. What—how can you take stuff down so that the kid 

who sent it is embarrassed, maybe becomes a little local news 

story? I mean, I don’t know. What—I—but, I know you can take 

stuff down. Who can do that? 

Ms. COLLINS. Whoever owns the servers can do that. And bringing it to the attention of whoever owns that server, whether it’s an 

online service provider, whether it’s an Internet service provider— 

bringing that to the company is the first step. Then, of course, reporting it. Somebody needs to know to be able to take it down. You 

know, most members of the public and most parents, you know, if 

there’s something very disturbing up there about their child—inappropriate photos, whatever it may be—would not necessarily know 

how to contact a company to try to take those steps. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Ms. COLLINS. Many companies do, in fact—certainly, with child 

pornography, there is really no problem with getting companies to 

take that down. It’s illegal material, and it’s violations of terms of 

service, it’s contraband. 

The CHAIRMAN. Who tries to get it down? Who takes it down? 

Ms. COLLINS. The actual company that is hosting the servers. 

Where the content is—— 

49 

The CHAIRMAN. So, they do it themselves. 

Ms. COLLINS. They will take it down if they’re notified, if they 

become aware of it. Most companies, we have not experienced any 

problem with them removing that material and reporting it to law 

enforcement. 

Regarding, you know, abusive, disturbing, harassing, upsetting 

quotes to a blog or social networking site, the different companies 

would have different policies, I assume. So, I would probably pass 

off to one of them to determine at what level would they be willing 

to take it down if a member of the public approached them. 

Mr. NIGAM. Mr. Chairman, can I speak from my experience in 

MySpace and having built the program there? 

One of the things that all companies can do is be proactive when 

it comes to the kind of content that goes on the site. And by that, 

my—what I mean by that is, employ individuals who actually review the images that are posted, identify ones that have child pornography, hate speech, extreme violence, drugs, paraphernalia, 

things like that, and remove those and then punish the member 

who violated the rules. 

Second—that’s the proactive side—in case you miss something, 

give every user the opportunity to report an abusive situation in 

the place where it may happen. In other words, if there’s any ability to generate content by a user, that location should also have a 

reporting capability to allow anybody who’s there to let us know. 

And then employ the 24/7 staff that actually looks at the reports 

coming in, prioritizes based on, ‘‘Is it suicide?’’—goes to the top; ‘‘Is 

it child exploitation?’’—goes to the top. And there are lots of—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You—— 

Mr. NIGAM.—key words that can be used. 

The CHAIRMAN. You mean if somebody takes the initiative—a citizen makes the initiative to report to you, for example, that you 

will act. 

Mr. NIGAM. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. And my question would be—that’s a pretty scary 

thing for a citizen to do. How do they know what they’re getting 

into? 

Mr. NIGAM. Well, that’s where—— 

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, my question is, Why wouldn’t 

you set up your own standards for Facebook and what you will 

allow to appear or what you will—you know, I don’t know the answer to it. I’m asking. 

Mr. NIGAM. I can answer that. Every company has a ‘‘terms of 

use’’ that sets the rules and it also sets the expectation of what it 

allows and doesn’t allow. At MySpace specifically—— 

The CHAIRMAN. But, that’s the small-print thing that people get? 

Mr. NIGAM. Well, actually, that’s the thing that you have to 

agree to that says, ‘‘You are not allowed to post pornography, 

you’re not allowed to harass another member, bully another member, you’re not allowed’’—and it goes through a list of things. Then 

the company, like MySpace, proactively, using—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. But, where do they see that? Where do they 

get that? How many times do they get that? Does the child or the 

parent, or whatever—— 

Mr. NIGAM. Well—— 

50 

The CHAIRMAN. How many times do you make that—— 

Mr. NIGAM. Children actually get the message more, because, 

when they are signed up, they get special messages that are different than what adults get. But, at the bottom of every page, the 

terms are—if you click on it, in front of you will pop the terms. And 

that’s every page you’re on, this site. 

But, I think the more important focus point here is, How 

proactive is a company in enforcing the rules? In other words, is 

it using keyword technology, like MySpace does, to trigger a review 

that, because there may be something bad in this area, ‘‘Staffer go 

and take a look at it.’’ And if there is something bad remove it, report it to law enforcement if it’s illegal, punish the user, take action. And then follow the trail deeper. If, for example, you’re finding an adult who has befriended some kids, and one of them is saying, ‘‘I think he’s exploiting me in some sense,’’ not only do you act 

on that, you then look at everything else that adult may be doing, 

and follow the trail to see if there’s a criminal case to be reported 

to law enforcement. 

So, I think companies can be a great deal more proactive than 

they, historically, have been. And it is—and, Senator, I agree with 

you on this—it’s time to change the paradigm on how companies 

approach bad behavior, unwanted behavior, illegal behavior, from 

simply a reactive, ‘‘Let me know and I’ll take it down,’’ to a 

proactive, ‘‘Let me identify it before the user base does, or before 

victimization occurs.’’ 

Ms. RICH. Mr. Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. I’ve got to do Mr. McIntyre, then Mr. 

Snowden, and then Ms. Collins. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And then, Ms. Rich, you’re—— 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. RICH. If we have time. 

The CHAIRMAN.—you have life, as of this afternoon, right? The 

FTC lives. 

Ms. RICH. Right. Terrific. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCINTYRE. That’s good news. 

Ms. RICH. Yes. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you. I’ll be brief. 

It seems to me, when I think of enforcement in this area—I am 

not a techie, by any means, but my, kind of, an external observation is that these companies are incredibly efficient—even cuttingedge—when it comes to identifying and prosecuting copyright enforcement and trademark infringement. I would wonder if there 

was something in that process, that those companies employ, that 

would allow for them to also pursue these other infringements with 

equal enthusiasm. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Snowden, then Ms. Collins, and then Ms. 

Rich, and then we’ll probably wind up. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. There are a lot of ideas that have been presented 

here. And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that your passion— 

you’re not alone in that. 

And it’s not so much the words that I’m conveying on behalf of 

the industry, I think our actions actually demonstrate this, as well, 

51 

particularly as we look at what we’ve—we embarked upon over 7 

years ago. Before we started seeing anything on our networks, we 

started talking with the National Center for Missing & Exploited 

Children to make sure child pornography wasn’t there. We started 

working with the various groups. So, it is fair to say that the wireless industry actually looked at lessons from other industries and 

said, ‘‘We want to get ahead of this.’’ 

You raised a couple of questions earlier about: Can we just shut 

the phone down for a week? The question that really gets debated 

in that is, Who is the—who has the authority to do that? If we 

were to do that, I would imagine we would be called up here before 

the Hill, with several different committees and the FCC, because 

net neutrality rules would probably come into place, about shutting 

service down and things of that nature. So, we need to look at the 

competing public policy goals that are going on right now. 

We used to have a—for years there was a walled garden that we 

had in our networks, and we controlled that. Now, with open access, that Congress and other have said, ‘‘We want to have more 

open access, not a walled garden,’’ that means there are less— 

there’s less control. So, there’s something that—we need to factor 

that in as we go through this debate. 

I want to convey that we want to work with this committee, and 

other committees as well, as we go through this, but we have to 

look at it at a macro level, not just in a micro level of one single 

public policy goal. From our standpoint—— 

The CHAIRMAN. No, no. I’m not going to let you get away with 

that. That—you ended your first statement, that there isn’t one 

single approach to this. And I’m not disinclined to agree—I’m—double negative. I’m inclined to agree with you that there isn’t one approach. But, you can’t just sort of say that, and therefore, stop, and 

then saying, ‘‘But we were there 7 years ago.’’ 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We were there 7 years ago, with our technology, 

with our industry, figuring out how we can do it for our issues. For 

example—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Are you satisfied with what you’re doing? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We are very satisfied with—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—what we’re doing. 

The CHAIRMAN.—speaking for—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. And we know—— 

The CHAIRMAN.—a lot of people. 

Mr. SNOWDEN.—there is more to be done, because we know, as 

the evolution—as innovation continues, kids get smarter, technology gets smarter, we all have to get smarter. As you listen to 

what was going on with MySpace, you put rules in place for 

MySpace, that may not work in the mobile environment, much like 

the V-Chip won’t work in the mobile or the social networking environment, as well. So, we have to look at it, as the Working Group 

said, in a macro level and not one-size-fits-all. 

The CHAIRMAN. But, don’t make it so complicated. Look, that’s— 

it’s doable. OK? I mean, you’ve got—— 

Mr. SNOWDEN. We agree. 

The CHAIRMAN.—you’ve got, MySpace—I’m sorry, I called you 

‘‘Facebook,’’ and I apologize. 

52 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. But, I mean, you’ve got that, and you’ve got 

other venues for it, but there aren’t that many. I mean if you have 

to have a multipronged attack—I mean, when Eisenhower designed 

Normandy Beach, I don’t think he, sort of, said, ‘‘Well, we have to 

do everything the same.’’ He said, ‘‘Where are you landing? What 

are the situations? Where are the Germans planted?’’—and all the 

rest of it. But, it has to be attacked, like we had to do Normandy 

in order to win that war. 

And we have to do something, a lot more than we’re doing, in 

order to win this—or to try to slow down this disease. The great 

influenza epidemic of 1918. I’m ready to make a comparison. You 

know, people aren’t dying from it, but they’re—some are, and their 

minds are being changed, and they’re being turned from readers 

and thinkers into followers and bullyers, and, ‘‘I want to please my 

peers,’’ and all of that. That’s been—that was true when I grew up, 

but we didn’t have the tools that are available now. And I think 

those tools—— 

It’s like the spectrum. Everybody uses the spectrum. And all telecommunications companies think that the spectrum belongs to 

them. It doesn’t. It belongs to the government. It belongs to the 

American people. And therefore, it can be exercised for the benefit 

of the American people. Which means that we ought to be—I mean, 

the FTC—or the FCC, for example, is allowed to comment on promiscuity, but they can’t talk on violence. That doesn’t make any 

sense. 

In other words, you have to take action at a higher level to cause 

things to happen at a lower level, I think, unless you don’t consider 

the problem that serious. If it’s not that serious a problem, or if the 

kids are going to evolve out of this behavior because they’ll grow 

up and become more mature and just their—stop their kids from 

doing it, whatever it is, and then the market works, fine. I don’t 

happen to believe that’s going to happen. 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Well, that’s why we created tools on our networks. 

We have tools that parents can have by literally just asking, ‘‘What 

are the filtering tools that I can put on my device?’’ That’s why we 

partnered with the National Center, to make sure we don’t have 

child pornography. And this is why we have launched 

BeSmartWireless.com so that there’s—there are tool kits there for 

teachers and parents and students to understand what the landscape is. 

This is a massive issue, and you’re absolutely correct. And it’s 

something that I think we have to all work together to try to 

achieve. And we feel that we are providing the tools, we are working in concert with very—many of these organizations here today, 

and others, and we want to work with Congress, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. We always have the choice that, if we don’t 

like what you’re doing, we could do something ourselves, right? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. You don’t want that, do you? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Well, we want to make sure that we do something 

that’s balanced. 

The CHAIRMAN. I—it wasn’t the question I asked. 

[Laughter.] 

53 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Closing thoughts. Anybody. 

Ms. RICH. Yes. I just wanted to come back to the issue of consumer privacy, which has been mentioned. You used the term 

‘‘game-changer’’ before, and we’re working hard now on privacy 

issues, because we believe that some of the technologies you’re 

talking about—mobile social networking, we didn’t mention cloud 

computing, but all the new ways data is used—are really a gamechanger for privacy. 

Data is ubiquitous. And right now the dominant model for addressing privacy are these privacy policies which we’ve just talked 

about. The terms of service, it’s fine print. People don’t stop, in the 

middle of what they’re doing, to go read the 20-page privacy policy, 

and then decide, oh, in fact, they’re not going to do what they were 

doing. 

So, we are looking hard—and this is for adults and teens—on 

whether there are better rules of the road, better ways to manage 

data collection, because otherwise teens’ data and adults’ data really can be used by anybody. 

Mr. NIGAM. Mr. Chairman, first, I want to thank you and the 

Committee for having this hearing, because one of the things that 

always inspires solutions is dialogue. 

You asked, in many ways, what people were doing, but you’re 

also, I think, heavily focused on—and this committee is—on what 

can be done. And I think sometimes, especially in the technology 

side, it’s hard, when you’re looking from the outside in, to see what 

the possibilities are, but it’s definitely easier just to ask. 

And I think there’s an opportunity here for this committee to 

convene a series of gatherings, if—perhaps that’s the easiest way 

to put the word—but, not of the policy folks, like us, but of the engineers, because there are amazingly smart minds in this country 

who know how to solve problems, using the power of technology. 

I know the National Center had talked about it, with the imagehashing and the fingerprinting, which I know MySpace uses, and 

a lot of other companies do. That’s just one tiny example of the 

power of technology being used for good. There are hundreds of 

others that can be created. Many are. 

But, at some point, I think what we have to do is focus on what 

to do and how to do, as opposed to what are the issues. It—I think 

we all know what the issues are, and I think it’s time that we can 

step forward and say, ‘‘Let’s put together the what to do and the 

how to do.’’ And the folks who can do the ‘‘how to do’’ are the engineers and that community in this country. And I think this body 

and others in the government have the opportunity to convene that 

gathering and convene a series of gatherings like that. And I think 

a lot of progress can be made through that methodology. OK? 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. McIntyre. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you for allowing closing comments, Senator. 

I would say that I’m not sure that we do know what all the 

issues are here, or that they have been fully acknowledged and realized by the industry representatives. Most of this hearing deals 

with the critical issues around sexual and child predators. But, ultimately, the heart of the issue is about children and their giving 

54 

out information, whether that be through a picture, or whether it 

be through their personal information, where privacy concerns can 

arise, or whether it is in ways that it is solicited inappropriately 

and then used against them by advertisers, as well. 

And so, my concern in this is the public health concern. When 

I look at this report that was just recently generated, as great as 

it is in dealing with the very limited issues that it deals with, there 

are no members from the public health community that were a 

part of that to be able to represent the broader spectrum of health 

issues that are important to recognize around our children. 

This is a health issue for our children. It is a basic health issue 

for our children. And we would love to see more involvement from 

the public health community and more involvement of the public 

health priorities as we go forward on this. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Collins? 

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, it’s interesting, when we’re discussing future steps—and it is very difficult because there isn’t a 

whole lot of very current research regarding exactly what is happening online, because the platforms keep changing, technology 

keeps changing quickly, and kids and the Internet are moving fast. 

I think that it’s very important when—you know, to do timely research, empirically-based findings, in order to determine where exactly to move forward with education, as well as bringing law enforcement to the table. Because law enforcement across the country 

are overwhelmed with these types of cases, and they’re seeing all 

sorts of things that may or may not come through when interviewing children. 

You—the research is needed. We have over 900,000 anecdotes 

within the CyberTipline. One of my light-bulb moments, you know, 

over the past few years, working with some of the technologists 

that Mr. Nigam mentioned—you have these brilliant geniuses who 

are building all these amazing games and technologies and so 

forth, and they’re creative and they’re building these wonderful 

products that are going to go out there. They’re not thinking, for 

a second, about how those products are going to be used and exploited to victimize children. And in my experience, working with 

them and talking with them and telling them some of these anecdotes, telling them some of these stories, it helps them really have 

a light-bulb moment themselves to try to build the architecture of 

that system a little bit differently so it’s less easy to exploit kids, 

less easy for them—for individuals to take advantage of the system. 

I think that really clear examples and cases that would help 

demonstrate how products will be exploited, potentially, is very important. So, you know, that’s a—you know, kind of a forward-movement thing. 

But, I think, lessons learned from the companies that have been 

doing this for some time, so new companies, new products, new 

platforms may avoid some of the pitfalls that have been seen in the 

past. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. Snowden? 

Mr. SNOWDEN. Mr. Chairman, we look forward to working with 

you and—specifically—and this committee, generally—on ensuring 

55 

that consumers have choice and control over their products and 

services, particularly when it comes to wireless. And I just wanted 

to say, thank you for the opportunity to be here. We appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Am I satisfied? No. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. But, am I grateful? Yes, to all of you, for coming. 

And I’m just very much thinking about when a government and 

a private sector of enormous power, stand and watch, and sometimes intervene, maybe, as the most vulnerable—you know, kids 

from 5 to 13, 13 to 17, and, frankly, it certainly goes beyond that— 

are being exploited and are being taught, through peer pressure 

and the availability of this medium, and the excitement of it, to 

lose curiosity as I would—and, I would say, to think less. That’s 

why I’ll never—I will always read books. I’m not reading a book if 

I’m reading it on, you know, iPad or whatever. I’m just not doing 

it. And I just—I think there are certain disciplines that young people have to go through in the training of their minds. Chess is 

good, for a reason. Teaching kids to play chess is good, for a reason, 

because, like going to law school, it makes you use your mind. And 

it takes up time, then you get into competitions, and you go out 

and you—you know, a whole new life begins. 

Here, what we’re talking about is the opposite, and that is—and 

I will always come back to fine print, because this committee has 

done so much work on consumer protection, where fine print is the 

way that people—health insurance companies, pop-up Internet 

things—you know, come to win over people, because nobody wants 

to read fine print, and then—well, in the middle of the fine print, 

there’s just a big blue thing saying ‘‘Yes’’ if you want the service. 

And obviously you think, ‘‘yes,’’ and you don’t have to pay for it, 

you think, and whatever. So, I—the fine print, I think, is a—it was 

probably a subject for a hearing, but certainly not today. 

Something has to happen on this. And I think people on this 

committee, at least I would think the majority of them, feel pretty 

strongly about it. And, you know, so we will see what happens. 

And I thank you all very much for your courtesy and your time 

in being here. 

[Whereupon, at 4:16 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(57) 

1Technology Review, ‘‘The Moral Panic over Social-Networking Sites’’ (Aug. 7, 2006) (quoting 

Danah Boyd). 2 Id. 

A P P E N D I X 

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION—WASHINGTON LEGISLATIVE OFFICE

Washington, DC, July 15, 2010 

Chairman MARK PRYOR, 

Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, 

Product Safety, and Insurance, 

U.S. Senate, 

Washington, DC. 

Ranking Member ROGER WICKER, 

Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, 

Product Safety, and Insurance, 

U.S. Senate, 

Washington, DC. 

Re: Subcommittee hearing on ‘‘Protecting Youths in an Online World’’ 

Dear Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker, and Members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for offering the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) the opportunity to submit this statement for the record in connection with the Subcommittee’s hearing titled ‘‘Protecting Youths in an Online World.’’ The ACLU is a nonpartisan organization with more than a half million members, countless additional 

activists and supporters, and 53 affiliates nationwide. While recognizing the concern 

many Americans have about the dangers facing children on the Internet, we urge 

the Subcommittee to avoid taking steps that would criminalize protected first 

amendment speech and, instead, to support programs that would educate and inform children, parents and educators about online risk prevention and Internet safety practices. 

The Internet presents new ways for young people to communicate—but it does not 

inherently increase the dangers that have been present in human society for centuries. Reported incidents involving youths online have produced heartbreaking stories with which all Americans sympathize. From these reports, one might conclude 

that the online world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for children. But 

it is also well-documented that online activity, particularly among youth, is increasing exponentially and so it is only logical that online incidents—such as online harassment, bullying or worse—would also be increasing. We must not let the compelling nature of these anecdotal reports stand in for a more reasoned assessment of 

the threats facing young people online. 

It is understandable to want to protect young people online. But before taking action in a way that would narrow the rights of adults and youth online, there should 

be a clear understanding of the differences between online threats and the kinds 

of issues young people have been dealing with for generations. There is evidence to 

suggest that some of the reported risks young people face online may be exaggerated. For example, one respected social media researcher at Harvard said that child 

abduction by a stranger is an extremely rare threat—12 out of 300,000 in a year.1

It stands to reason that such abductions resulting from online activity are similarly 

rare. And despite dire warnings that 20 percent of children have been sexually solicited in chat rooms, by instant messenger, or e-mail, it is routinely overlooked that 

these solicitations overwhelmingly originate with other young people—96 percent— 

and that such solicitations are easily and typically ignored.2 The phenomenon of 

‘‘cyberbullying’’ has also received attention recently and in a rush to address this 

problem, lawmakers have forgotten that bullying has been around since long before 

the Internet. Previously young people harassed and intimidated each other face to 

face, through third parties, through the mails, by telephone, across the airwaves, 

and—only now—via Internet communications. Yet there is very little research to 

suggest the dangers to young people are dramatically worse online than offline. Before taking legislative steps that may restrict online free speech, we urge Congress 

58 

3Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. 104–104, 110 Stat. 56 (Title V—Communications 

Decency Act of 1996) (CDA was an add-on to the bill and received no substantial public airing 

of its provisions, unlike the remainder of the bill). 4 47 U.S.C. s. 231. 

5See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329 (1997) (CDA facially overbroad); ACLU 

v. Mukasey, 534 F.3d 181 (3d Cir. 2008) (cert. denied) (COPA not narrowly tailored and not the 

least restrictive alternative). 

to make sure it accurately assesses the severity of the threat and narrowly focuses 

any legislative proposal. 

Federal attempts to circumvent the first amendment and regulate online behavior 

with the goal of protecting youths are nothing new. They began in the mid-1990s 

with the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which attempted, among other 

things, to protect minors from harmful material on the Internet by criminalizing the 

knowing transmission of obscene or indecent messages to any minor recipient or the 

knowing sending or display of any message that depicts patently offensive activities.3 After the Supreme Court struck down the CDA, Congress tried again by enacting the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which provided for civil and criminal 

penalties for anyone who knowingly posts material that is harmful to minors on the 

web for commercial purposes.4 Both laws were declared unconstitutional for overreaching—imposing a broader speech restriction than necessary to achieve the narrow objective of protecting children from obscene material.5

Other Federal legislative efforts have been more successful. The Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) protects children under 13 from the collection of personally identifying information by operators of commercial websites or online services. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) mandates that schools and libraries employ software filters to restrict access by minors to inappropriate material 

as a condition of receiving Federal funds. Many Federal and state legislative initiatives have attempted to impose restrictions, sometimes successfully, on sex offenders 

in their use of the Internet even after completion of their sentences. 

Criminalizing online speech is unconstitutional and will be ineffective. Harassing 

speech will either continue online in violation of the law or it will simply shift to 

other spheres within which it simultaneously exists. This does not serve to minimize 

the potential dangers facing young people online, but rather it demonstrates that 

we may be better served by working to educate youth on the responsibilities associated with electronic communications. 

Legislation has been introduced to inform children, parents, and educators about 

the risks and opportunities associated with online communications. H.R. 3630 and 

related bill H.R. 3222, the ‘‘Adolescent Web Awareness Requires Education Act 

(AWARE Act),’’ offered by Representative Wasserman-Schultz, both have elements 

aimed at doing so. The latter bill, in particular, would direct grant funds to the development of Internet safety education programs and would provide training and 

tools to teachers and parents to help keep young people in a position to use the 

Internet safely. The former bill—H.R. 3630—would put a greater emphasis on crime 

awareness which in our view misplaces priorities about the Internet, a facility that 

should be viewed as a vast and expanding resource and not primarily as a place 

of criminality and intimidation. However, the bill also includes some of the same 

opportunities for education of children, parents and educators and, as such, represents a better step forward than an overbroad attempt to criminalize certain kinds 

of online speech. 

Young people are always quick to adopt new technologies and this should be recognized and encouraged as we move into the digital age. The Internet has made it 

easier for them to learn about the world and communicate with others. While some 

might say that such ease of communication necessitates the need for special restrictions on minors who haven’t learned the restraint that comes with maturity, we believe that any restriction specifically aimed at curbing the speech rights of minors 

in the new electronic forum is a step in the wrong direction and not in keeping with 

the ideals of our constitutional framework. 

We do not take issue with the Subcommittee’s interest in looking at the issues 

of harassment, intimidation, or abuse faced by youth, but we would encourage taking a broad view of the phenomenon, not limited to the particular tools of communications used to convey such messages that may lead to harmful actions. For example a review of the tools that the Internet can provide to assist in limiting bullying 

or harassment, such as documentation of incidents and identifying when intervention is necessary, could yield valuable insights for fighting the problem. If additional 

legislation at the Federal level is deemed necessary, we would urge the Subcommittee to carefully define its terms before moving forward, taking care to draw 

any prohibitions very narrowly so as to avoid limitations on protected First AmendVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:06 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 067765 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\67765.TXT SCOM1 PsN: JACKIE
59 

ment rights. In the meantime, as we still stand on the opening threshold of the 

Internet age, there is much good that can be done by expanding public awareness 

of both the benefits and risks associated with online activity and we would encourage the Subcommittee to support such efforts. 

If you have questions or comments on ACLU’s position on this issue, please feel 

free to contact Michael Macleod-Ball at 202–675–2309 or by e-mail at 

mmacleod@dcaclu.org. 

Sincerely, 

LAURA W. MURPHY, 

Director, Washington Legislative Office. 

MICHAEL W. MACLEOD-BALL, 

Chief Legislative and Policy Counsel. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF YAHOO! INC. 

Chairman Pryor, Ranking Member Wicker and members of the Subcommittee, 

you are to be commended for your continued and long-standing interest in child online safety issues. Yahoo! also has a deep commitment to online safety issues and 

is grateful for the opportunity to share some relevant information learned through 

a study we released in honor of National Internet Safety Month in June. Yahoo! was 

also a participant in the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (‘‘OSTWG’’) 

that was set up pursuant to legislation that started in this committee in 2007. In 

June, the OSTWG issued its report to Congress entitled ‘‘Youth Safety on a Living 

Internet’’ which addresses several key areas of online safety including education, 

safety tools, reporting and cooperation with law enforcement. Yahoo! has many activities in these areas and will take this opportunity to briefly describe what is 

being done in these areas. 

Yahoo! Background 

Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative 

technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most visited 

Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo!’s vision is to 

be the center of people’s online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful 

Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. 

Yahoo! Online Safety and Digital Protection Survey 

In April of this year, Yahoo! conducted an online survey with Ipsos OTX to gain 

insight into consumers’ behaviors and perceptions with regard to online safety. The 

survey is based on a sample size of 2003 Internet users in the United States, ages 

18–64 years old. Our goal in conducting the survey was to gain insights into people’s 

behaviors and sentiments regarding online safety so we can better align our safety 

education, product features, and outreach efforts to user needs. We wanted to drive 

awareness of National Internet Safety month in June by uncovering trends around 

online safety—specifically with parents and children and digital reputation management. 

The survey interviewed a cross-section of U.S. adults, with 40 percent of the respondents being parents with children of the age of 17 or younger. The survey asked 

a variety of questions relating to parents and kid’s online safety management, including cyberbullying, sexting; and digital reputation management. 

The findings of the survey are very encouraging as they show parents are being 

much more proactive than generally believed when it comes to their children’s online safety. The data also shows that there is more work to be done. Overall, Yahoo! 

gave parents a B+ for their efforts to monitor their children’s online activities. 

Yahoo! also concluded, based on the survey results, that more education and resources are needed to help parents and children address cyberbullying and digital 

reputation management. More detailed information on the survey findings is attached as a presentation at the end of this document. 

Parents Are Taking Action 

Yahoo! celebrates the parents who are proactively monitoring their children’s online safety and are having appropriate discussions with their kids. The Yahoo! survey shows: 

• 78 percent of parents are concerned about their children’s online safety, with 

almost 50 percent being ‘‘very concerned.’’ 

• 70 percent of parents talk to their children about online safety at least 2–3 

times a year; 45 percent talk to their children at least once a month. 

60 

• 74 percent of parents are connected to their children’s profiles on social networking sites. 

• 71 percent of parents have taken at least one action to manage their children’s 

use of the Internet or cell phones such as: 

» Checking to see where children are searching online. 

» Setting time limits for children’s use of computers or cell phones. 

» Setting parental controls on video sites. 

» Using filters to limit where children go on the web. 

This level of parental engagement is an encouraging sign that parents and children are becoming more comfortable with safety issues and discussing them with 

each other. It also shows parents are embracing the tools that are available to empower them to control their own and their children’s online experiences. But there 

is always room for improvement. 

Cyberbullying Findings 

While many parents are actively engaged in their children’s online experiences, 

cyberbullying presents significant challenges. Most parents are aware of the problems presented by cyberbullying, yet are unsure of appropriate actions to take in 

response. The data from our survey shows: 

• 81 percent of parents know what cyberbullying is. 

• 1 in 4 adults (25 percent) who are aware of cyberbullying have either been victims or know someone else affected by cyberbullying. 

• 37 percent of parents feel that they know what to do about cyberbullying. 

• Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of people want their child’s school to play an 

active role in teaching kids about online safety and citizenship. 

Yahoo! Tips on Cyberbullying 

Yahoo! has developed an extensive safety site accessible from nearly every page 

of yahoo.com. Yahoo! Safely (safely.yahoo.com) helps inform parents, students, and 

teachers about online safety through timely videos, simple strategies and advice 

from non-profit safety experts. Specifically, Yahoo! Safely offers the following tips 

for young people to help prevent cyberbullying. 

• Own your digital reputation. The Internet is a public space, so before you share 

photos or personal details, make sure it’s info that you’d share with teachers, 

colleges, or job prospects. 

• Keep your private information under your control. Keeping Internet conversations (and your user names/profiles) free of personal information like your password, full name, or even the name of your school, is important. 

• Be nice (and pass it on)! Be respectful online and treat people the way you’d 

want to be treated. If someone is being disrespectful or bullying you, try to ignore them and use privacy tools to block them from viewing your full profile 

and contacting you. 

• Know your rights. You have the right to not respond to e-mail or other messages 

that are inappropriate or make you feel uncomfortable. If you get a message 

that doesn’t feel right, show it to your parents, guardians, or another trusted 

adult and report the incident to your Internet service provider. 

• Have a family chat. Talking with your parents or guardians doesn’t mean giving 

up your privacy. Everyone benefits when you’re on the same page about online 

activities, including when you can go online, how long you can stay, and what 

activities you can do online. 

Digital Reputation Management Findings 

Digital reputation management is a growing concern for both children and adults 

as they share more and more personal information online. New stories have reported everyone from potential employers to college admissions officers conducting 

online searches and considering the findings in evaluating an applicant. The information a user posts online can have important safety consequences, and important 

long term implications on the user’s reputation. 

However, according to the recent Yahoo! online safety survey, 65 percent of people 

do not know, or are not sure what a digital footprint is and 31 percent do not feel 

they are in control of their online image. ‘‘Digital reputation management’’ as defined by the study includes both a user’s digital footprint—the content and information that is posted by or about a user on the web over time, including online profiles, 

61 

comments and blogs—and a user’s online image—the way people are perceived 

based on content. 

The survey also concluded that 

• 48 percent of respondents do not realize or are not sure if the information they 

put on the web will remain online forever and 7 percent think that it won’t remain online forever if they simply delete it. 

• 20 percent of people plug their own name into a search engine once a month 

or more; 49 percent do it 2–3 times a year or less. 

• Adults ages 18–34 are more proactive about managing their digital profiles than 

adults 35–49 and adults 50+. 

Online safety education has long urged children, and actually users of all ages, 

to be careful about the types of personal information they post online and who they 

make it available to—such as information about where they live or where they go 

to school—as an important part of maintaining their physical safety. Given the 

many other implications that a user’s online activity can have for their present and 

future, these survey results suggests that there is a need to cultivate greater awareness among Internet users of all ages about the broader impacts of what they choose 

to share online. 

Yahoo! Tips on Digital Reputation Management 

• Know your connections: Only connect with people you know offline. 

• Think before you post: Once something is posted online, it’s virtually impossible 

to take back because words, pictures, and videos can be easily forwarded, copied, and taken out of context. 

• Protect your personal information: Posting personal information or photos can 

identify you to strangers. Never reveal personal information to people unless 

you are friends with them offline. 

• Configure your settings: Take the time to understand the profile settings that 

are available to you on websites and social networks, and tailor those settings 

for you. 

• Understand your digital footprint: On a monthly basis, search for your name on 

search engines, like Yahoo! Search, and on social networks to understand what 

type of content is associated with you. 

Yahoo! Online Safety Efforts 

At Yahoo!, we are very proud of our long history of promoting safer environments 

for kids to experience the benefits of the Internet. In 1996, Yahoo! was the first 

Internet company to launch a child and teacher-friendly web resource of safe, childappropriate websites. Yahoo! Kids (formerly Yahooligans!) is Yahoo!’s award-winning web guide for children ages 7 to 12. All content on Yahoo! Kids has been reviewed by human editors for appropriateness for it’s young audience. Yahoo! Kids 

(kids.yahoo.com) also includes a substantive Parents Guide that covers all manner 

of media safety, especially online safety issues. 

Today, Yahoo! Kids, Yahoo! Shine, and Yahoo! Safely all feature safety information targeted to kids, teens, and adults. Yahooligans! was our starting point, but we 

have grown our safety program into a multi-faceted approach to online safety that 

focuses on: (1) education; (2) user and ISP reporting; (3) technology and user empowerment tools; and (4) relationships with law enforcement, industry peers and 

child advocacy organizations. Many of our most recent efforts are directly related 

to the issues raised in our online safety survey. They also largely coincide with the 

findings of the recently released Online Safety and Technology Working Group 

(OSTWG) study entitled ‘‘Youth Safety on a Living Internet.’’ 

OSTWG Study and Recommendations 

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was 

tasked by the ‘‘Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act,’’ a title of the 

‘‘Broadband Data Improvement Act,’’ P.L. 110–385, to create a multi-disciplinary 

working group to report to Congress on four key areas relating to the safety of children while online. These four areas are: (1) online safety education; (2) parental controls and other empowerment tools; (3) child pornography reporting; and (4) data retention. Yahoo! was pleased to provide expert participation in the OSTWG. The 

OSTWG issued its report this past June and it included over 30 recommendations 

for the continued study and improvement of online safety efforts. 

62 

1Youth Safety on a Living Internet, Report of the Online Safety and Technology Working 

Group, June 2010 http://www.ntia.doc.gov/reports/2010/OSTWGFinalReport060410.pdf at 6. 2 Id. at 5. 3 Id. at 12. 4 Id. at 30–31. 5 Id. at 31. 6 Id. at 32. 

As many of the participants in the hearing are likely to comment on the OSTWG 

report findings, Yahoo! would like to focus on those findings and recommendations 

that are most relevant to our areas of focus. 

Online Safety Education Findings and Recommendations 

The OSTWG Subcommittee on Internet Safety Education made a number of important findings about the elements of successful education and awareness efforts 

that should be carefully considered by any entity seeking to promote safety education. These findings include that: educational messages should not be fear based 

nor follow a one-size-fits-all approach given that those who are at risk in the offline 

world also tend to be at the greatest risk in the online world; messages and advice 

should be appropriately tailored to the risks being addressed, how technology is actually being used and the intended audience. For example, the OSTWG Report notes 

that at one point the primary safety advice given to parents was to locate the family 

computer somewhere central in the house.1 Today, widespread use of mobile devices 

makes this messaging far less relevant. Safety education needs to evolve as use of 

technology evolves. The subcommittee also noted that there are many stakeholders 

who have key roles to play in promoting safe online practices including schools, parents and online services.2

Similar to our survey findings, The OSTWG report finds that cyberbullying is the 

most serious concern for students, parents, and schools because it is currently the 

online danger that children and teens are most likely to face.3

The OSTWG report offers a number of recommendations that Yahoo! agrees are 

of key importance to continuing to improve the effectiveness of safety awareness. I 

would like to specifically highlight a few of these recommendations and the corresponding Yahoo! efforts that support the goals of the recommendations. 

• ‘‘Keep Up With Research and Base Education On It’’: 4 Yahoo!’s recent survey, 

as well as our extensive work with safety experts, is designed to provide the 

basis for a fact-driven approach to developing on our online safety programs, including which issues to focus on and how best to convey safety messages. We 

welcome more coordinated national efforts to bring together the great academic 

and scientific work that has been done in this space and to further develop our 

common understanding of the risks we want to address. 

• ‘‘Coordinate Federal Government Educational Efforts’’: 5 Yahoo! applauds the efforts of government entities, particularly the Federal Trade Commission, for its 

online safety education efforts. OnGuard Online has been a leading educational 

effort that, Yahoo!, like many service providers point our users to as a key safety resource both from safely.yahoo.com and from security.yahoo.com. Other efforts to consider online safety or citizenship funding within reauthorization of 

the Elementary and Secondary Education Act should also be seriously considered. 

• ‘‘Establish Industry Best Practices’’: 6 The OSTWG Report recommends that providers evaluate the specific safety needs of their users and to tailor educational 

efforts, safety tools and other resources to those needs. In addition, it calls on 

providers to work collaboratively with other companies, non-profits, schools and 

governments. Yahoo! has a wide range of programs under way with each of 

these groups. To name a few: 

» Yahoo! has created educational videos for Yahoo! Profiles, integrates tips and 

advice into product help pages, and issues regular blog posts to educate people on online safety issues on Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com) and the 

Yahoo! Policy blog (ypolicyblog.com). 

» Yahoo! is engaged in partnerships with Ikeepsafe.org, Family Online Safety 

Institute, Teen Angels/wiredsafety, i-Safe, CARU/BBB, connectsafely.org, and 

Commonsense Media. These activists and experts are on the cutting edge of 

relevant advice, solutions and emerging issues. 

» Yahoo! hosts an annual Cybercitizenship Summit to bring together educational thought leaders to discuss issues, developments, and solutions 

63 

7 Id. at 66. 8 Id. at 7. 

around youth and online safety. Our last Summit, held on December 4, 2009 

focused on cyberbullying and online reputation management. 

» Yahoo! has partnered with Ikeepsafe.org/DARE to develop Internet safety curriculum for grades K–6. We work collaboratively with iKeepSafe in developing 

the Project PRO curriculum, aimed at helping educators coach their students 

on how to manage their digital reputations. 

» Yahoo! increases awareness around online safety throughout the year during 

Safer Internet Day (February), Internet Safety Month (June), and National 

Cyber-Security Awareness Month (October). This can include messages on our 

front page, which attracts over 600 million users per month. Yahoo! has also 

worked closely with the National Cyber Security Alliance on a consumer messaging project in 2010. 

» Yahoo! works collaboratively with local police departments to deliver preventative and diversion safety courses. Yahoo! has been working on a pilot Diversion course with the Sunnyvale, California Police. The course is designed to 

train students on better online behavior if they receive detention or other sentencing by the courts for online crimes such as sexting. 

Parental Control and User Empowerment Tools Findings and 

Recommendations 

The Parental Control and User Empowerment Tools subcommittee found that the 

parental control marketplace is functioning fairly well—at least for parents with 

some degree of technical sophistication—and yet there is more that can be done to 

increase awareness and usage of existing tools and to continue to improve capabilities. After studying the range of tools in the marketplace—both stand alone solutions and integrated product safety features—and their effectiveness and level of 

use, the subcommittee developed, among others, the following conclusions and recommendations. 

• User empowerment tools and parental controls are ‘‘most effective as part of a 

‘layered’ approach to online safety that views them as one of many strategies 

or solutions.’’ 7 In addition, the report found that ‘‘technical solutions can supplement, but can never supplant the educational and mentoring role.’’ 8

• ‘‘Parental empowerment technologies and options should be included in new offerings whenever possible’’ and ‘‘[s]afety by design’’ should be encouraged. The 

OSTWG also recommends that industry carefully review default settings which 

are an important element of safety by design. Yahoo! has been examining its 

default settings in the context of new product and feature launches, and, within 

the context of the overall operation of the service, attempts to set defaults to 

embrace safety as a key objective. Examples of ‘‘safety by design’’ and use of 

default settings include: 

» Enhancements to our social experience within Yahoo! Pulse launched in early 

June, defaulting users registered as being ages 13–17 to allow only ‘‘connections’’ (those that have been confirmed by the user as a friend) to see their 

profiles. Yahoo! also has defaulted settings on Pulse for users under age 18 

that are designed to steer users away from revealing their ages and addresses. 

» The launch of our ‘‘Updates’’ service where users can post status updates from 

various places throughout the Yahoo! network also defaults the sharing of 

these updates to ‘‘connections only’’ for teen users. 

» Flickr, Yahoo!’s photo sharing service, provides various controls for users to 

tailor their experience including the ability to make photos public, private or 

viewed by friends and/or family; categorize photos as safe, moderate or restricted content; turn SafeSearch on so only photos designed as safe for a 

global, public audience will be returned in results; hide photos from public 

searches; customize settings around privacy and permissions; and the ability 

to report abuse. 

» The Yahoo! SafeSearch feature is designed to filter out explicit, adult-oriented 

content from Yahoo! Search results. Yahoo! defaults to a filter that removes 

adult video and image search results. Parents can password-protect the 

search filter setting for their computer by ‘‘locking’’ their SafeSearch settings. 

» Yahoo! Messenger allows people to block others from contacting them as well 

as report suspected spammers and report abuse. 

64 

9 Id. at 67. 10 Id. at 89–91. 11 Id. at 116. 

» Yahoo! Groups gives users control over how they receive e-mail messages, the 

ability to block users under the age of 18 from receiving messages, and the 

ability to report abuse. 

» Yahoo! Chat does not support user created chat rooms—all chat rooms are 

created by Yahoo!; we have restricted usage of the service to 18 and older, 

no longer support a ‘‘teen’’ category, and have included a ‘‘report abuse’’ button. 

• Community Policing was also recommended by the OSTWG as an important 

part of service provider options to allow users to flag inappropriate content and 

report inappropriate behavior.9 User and third party reporting have long played 

an important role in Yahoo!’s safety approach. We use these efforts to help us 

identify material in violation of our Terms of Service so that we can remove it 

from our site, discover users who are violating our guidelines, and to assist us 

in identifying and reporting child pornography content to the National Center 

for Missing & Exploited Children (‘‘NCMEC’’). In addition to leveraging the 

power of our users to help us identify abuse of our services, we also employ filters, algorithms, human and automated resources to detect child pornography 

content, as well as work with third parties that have lists of URLs where 

known child pornography is found. 

Child Pornography Reporting Findings and Recommendations 

As a result of the Protect Our Children Act of 2008, Public Law No. 110–401, 122 

Stat. 4229 (2008), the reporting obligations for Internet Service Providers, previously captured at 42 U.S.C.§ 13032, have been improved by a new law that: (1) 

clearly states what should be included in a report; (2) provides appropriate immunities for the transmission of images as part of fulfilling the reporting obligation; and 

(3) provides for preservation of materials included in a report and related to a report. 

OSTWG recommendations in this area in large part focus on smaller ISP and 

OSPs that may not understand or have mechanisms in place to report as required 

by the new law. Other recommendations focus on the continued need for dialogue 

with law enforcement and NCMEC, as well as increased technology and information 

sharing among service providers.10 Yahoo!’s efforts as a leader on reporting issues 

is evidenced by our visible presence on these issues over many years. 

» Yahoo! features prominent ‘‘Report Abuse’’ links across our network near user 

generated content to encourage users to flag problem issues. 

» Yahoo! was an active participant in developing with industry peers and 

NCMEC the service provider sound practices for reporting child pornography, 

which were the model for changes in the law passed as part of the Protect 

our Children Act in 2008. 

» Yahoo! has had a long-time relationship with Internet Watch Foundation and 

uses the Foundation’s URL list along with NCMEC’s URL list to remove 

known child pornography sites from its search index. 

» Yahoo! is a founding member of the Technology Coalition working to develop 

improved detection and reporting technologies for child pornography images. 

Data Retention in Child Exploitation Investigations Findings and 

Recommendations 

Unlike other areas of the Report, no clear consensus emerged on whether there 

is a need for mandatory retention obligations beyond those required as part of the 

preservation regime in the Protect our Children Act. Instead of attempting to arrive 

at a consensus view, the Report focuses on conveying the diverse viewpoints of law 

enforcement, industry, and privacy advocates. Indeed, following the subcommittee’s 

investigation, there remain many unanswered questions about the need for data retention, the potential scope of data retention, technical costs and limitations, and 

the impact on user privacy. 

• The recommendation to study the impact of the new preservation provisions of 

the Protect our Children Act is perhaps the most important.11 Yahoo! supported 

the legislation that became the Protect our Children Act, including the preservation provision, because it was designed to balance law enforcement’s needs for 

ISPs and OSPs to hold data regarding those who misuse services to exploit children online with the overall privacy interests of the entire user community. 

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12 Id. at 88–89. 13 Id. at 116. 

This balance was struck by focusing preservation efforts on those users who 

ISPs and OSPs are already required by law to report as being involved in an 

apparent incident of child pornography. This focus makes sense because the 

vast majority of other users will never be investigated for the commission of a 

crime. 

When the legislation was passed in 2008, approximately 30,000 reports by ISPs 

and OSPs were submitted to NCMEC. However, there were over 60,000 reports 

in 2009 and over 27,000 just in the first quarter of 2010, on track for a 78 percent year over year increase from 2009.12 These provider reports provide an important and underutilized means to pursue child predation. This is a well-tailored solution to the need for data retention in online child exploitation cases 

and should be given a chance to be fully implemented and evaluated on its merits before additional data retention measures are considered. 

• The OSTWG Study further suggests Internet Crimes Against Children Task 

Forces hold regular meetings with ISPs and OSPs.13 This recommendation is in 

synch with our own online safety principle to work constructively with law enforcement as a partner in creating a safer Internet. That is why Yahoo! has 

built a law enforcement compliance function to respond to valid law enforcement demands and to be able to respond appropriately in investigations of online child exploitation crimes. 

» Yahoo! maintains a 24x7 law enforcement compliance function which responds 

to requests related to child exploitation in an expedited fashion. 

» We engage in law enforcement educational efforts including presentations for 

Internet Crimes Against Children investigators, Federal investigators, and 

state Attorneys General offices. 

» We work with law enforcement and NCMEC to take swift action when we become aware of harmful activities to children that are in violation of our policies. 

» Yahoo! was also an early participant in the Financial Coalition Against Child 

Pornography, a coalition of credit card issuers and Internet services companies which seeks to eliminate commercial child pornography by taking action 

on the payment systems used fund these illegal operations. 

As evidenced by the many of examples of our engagement on these issues over 

a number of years, Yahoo! is very much in line with the actions suggested by the 

OSTWG report. We have found our niche and will continue to work to protect kids 

online. 

Role for Government 

Yahoo! believes government agencies can follow up on the recommendations of the 

OSTWG report and the findings of our survey by sponsoring additional research, 

highlighting best practice and safety advice through sites like the FTC’s OnGuard 

Online, encouraging the development of online safety tools, continuing to promote 

education and training of students and teachers, and maintaining oversight of reporting and enforcement efforts. While many of the other players engaged in this 

dialogue can educate and create technologies or tools, only the government can enforce the laws passed to fight against child predation and exploitation. 

To that end, Yahoo! supports implementation of the provisions of several laws 

passed in the 110th Congress, including the Protect our Children Act, P.L. 110–401, 

which provided authorization for new computer forensics labs to assist law enforcement investigations, a new national strategy for child exploitation prevention and 

interdiction, strengthening the role of ICAC Task Forces, and creation of a Crimes 

against Children Data System. Additionally, Congress passed the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, P.L. 110–385, which authorized an education campaign on child safety to be run by the FTC as well as limitations on funding for 

schools and libraries unless they have online safety and cyberbullying education. 

Congress also passed the Kids Act, P.L. 110–400 designed to allow service providers 

to access lists of sexual predators’ screen names, but no rule has yet been established for sharing online identities. Other legislation passed in 2008 and known as 

the Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act, P.L. 110–358, included changes to 

interstate commerce definitions to include child pornography as well as stricter penalties for violations of the law in this area. All of these changes are still in the implementation stage or are awaiting rulemakings and testing in the market and/or 

courts. It is important for this committee and others in this Congress to ensure the 

66 

laws you have passed are moving forward, as you are doing today by reviewing 

these issues in depth. 

Conclusion 

Our survey findings are both encouraging and cause for reflection. While parental 

engagement is overall at a positive level, kids, parents and educators are all struggling with how best to approach the challenging issue of cyberbullying. And parents 

and kids both need to better understand digital reputation management—the longterm impact of the information they share in the online world. 

The OSTWG Report both reinforces the findings from our survey and our ongoing 

dialogue with safety experts, and suggests additional data and education are needed. Yahoo! is committed to continuing down the path of promoting user awareness 

and cultivating safe online behaviors among our subscribers. We look forward to 

continuing the safety dialogue with our partners, peers and law enforcement and, 

in particular, with this committee. We further look forward to seeing how Congress 

conducts oversight over the many varied agencies implementing the four new child 

safety laws enacted in 2008. 

Thank you, once again, for taking our testimony on these issues. 

Online Safety and Digital Protection 

Yahoo! Consumer Pulse Survey—April 2010 

Background & Methodology 

• Yahoo!, in partnership with Ipsos OTX, conducted an online survey to gain insight into consumers’ behaviors and perceptions with respect to online safety. 

• 2003 respondents were recruited via Ipsos OTX’s Internet panel for an 18 

minute online survey. Interviews were conducted from April 16–April 21. 


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Parents & Kid’s Online Safety Management 

Letters indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding groups. PARENT1. On a scale of 1–5 how concerned are you about your child’s 

safety online? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. PARENT17. How often do you talk to your child(ren) about 

online safety? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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PARENT18. Are you connected (’friends’ with) to your kids on social network sites? Base: Children visit social networking sites PARENT19. Which of the following, if any, do you know? Base: 

Children visit social networking sites. 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding groups. 

PARENT5. Do you, and does your child(ren), know what cyber-bullying is? Cyber-bullying, 

happens when people use the Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. *Base: Total Answering—changed mid-field. 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Letters indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding groups. 

PARENT7. Have you ever witnessed or experienced cyber bullying? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PARENT8. Do you know what to do about cyber bullying? 

OE2: Imagine if you or your child(ren) were the victim of cyber bullying. What, if anything, 

would you do about it? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PARENT24. What role do you think schools should play in teaching children about online 

safety and citizenship? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Lettering indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between corresponding demographic groups. 

PARENT6. Does your child(ren)’s school have a cyber-bulling policy? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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PARENT9 .Which of the following have you done? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Lettering indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between corresponding demographic groups. 

PARENT3. Which of the following, if any, regarding your kid’s use of the Internet and cell 

phones do you do? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PARENT17. How often do you talk to your child(ren) about online safety? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

PARENT15. How often, if ever, do you search your children’s name online to see what comes 

up or to check his/her profile? Base: Parents Boxes indicate statistically significant differences 

at the 90 percent confidence level between corresponding demographic groups. 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Adult Online Image Management 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPR13. Do you know what a digital footprint is? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPR15. Do you think you are in control of your online image (i.e., the image you portray 

online)? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPRO4. When you send an e-mail or post a comment on someone’s wall or a blog, do you 

think it will remain online forever? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPRO10. How often, if ever, do you search online your own name to see what comes up 

or to check your profile? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Lettering indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between corresponding demographic groups. 

DIGFTPR5. Which, if any, of the following steps do you take to manage your ‘‘digital profile’’? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

DIGFTPR4. How concerned are you about protecting your ‘‘digital profile,’’ to guard against 

identity theft or other fraud/misuse/abuse? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 


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Boxes indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between 

corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPRO9. How often do you think that information found online about people is used to 

make a hiring or other important decision? 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Lettering indicate statistically significant differences at the 90 percent confidence level between corresponding demographic groups. 

PROFPRO6. Whom are you most concerned will see your personal information online? Select 

all that apply. 

Source: Yahoo! Online Safety & Digital Protection Survey (April 2010) 

Æ 


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