In a survey* of 1,000 parents of children under 18 years old who use Facebook, MinorMonitor found that over 38% of the children with accounts are 12 years old and under which is a violation of Facebook’s minimum age requirement. 74% of parents are concerned about their children’s safety on Facebook, with the majority worrying about sexual predators, at 56%, a far larger percentage than 11 other “worry” categories. Over 50% of parents currently monitor their children’s Facebook activities by logging into their child’s account, with or without their child’s permission. MinorMonitor is happy to share further results of this survey and has developed an infographic, open for use, at http://www.minormonitor.com/infographic/kids-on-facebook.

“As children continue to explore social media at younger ages, it is imperative that parents not only educate their children, but also remain vigilant by monitoring kids’ online activity,” said Jeana Lee Tahnk, kids’ technology expert and writer. “Free resources like MinorMonitor make it easy to ensure that age-appropriate children are protected and using the Internet responsibly, while allowing them the freedom to engage online.”

MinorMonitor is a free, web-based parental tool that gives a parent a quick, easy view into their child’s Facebook activities and friends, through knowledge-based analytics. Via an intuitive dashboard, parents can access either a snapshot, or full detail and specifics, of potential dangerous activities such as the friending of online predators, cyberbullying, violence, drug and alcohol use, and sexual references.

Far Too Young to Be So Social
Facebook requires its users be at least 13 years old, yet of MinorMonitor’s 1,000 surveyed, parents said more than 38% were 12 years or younger. And of the 1,000 surveyed, a full – and frightening – 40 children on Facebook are reported to be 6 years old or younger. Given last year’s Consumer Reports data that 20 million active Facebook users are minors, or under 18, following this survey sample, that translates to 800,000 kindergarteners on Facebook. As social networking becomes more prevalent for children at younger ages, the need for parents to oversee activity and safeguard against online predators and cyberbullies is even more critical.

So Many Facebook Worries
MinorMonitor polled parents on whether or not they were worried about their children on Facebook. 74% said yes, they are worried. The survey then dug into the top 12 concerns ranging from sexual predators, strangers, and cyberbullying to sharing too much information, online viruses, identity theft, and Internet addiction to pornography, sexting, drugs, and alcohol. The number one concern of parents was sexual predators, at a resounding 56%. Sharing too much information, strangers, and cyberbullying rounded out the top four, respectively. Interestingly, while 41% said they were concerned about cyberbullying through Facebook use, more troubling was that 30% of parents believed their child already experienced cyberbullying. According to the parents surveyed, one in every three children was cyberbullied, already.

How to Get a Handle on Facebook
With all these kids online, and all these worries, and also survey results showing the majority of kids are spending an average of two hours a day on Facebook, what are parents doing to keep tabs, to protect their children online? As stated, over 50% of the 1,000 parents are monitoring their children on Facebook by logging into their child’s account, with or without their permission. This method requires 24X7 supervision by the parent as deleted content can never be seen. 24% of parents feel they are monitoring their child on Facebook by “friending” them, an extremely ineffective way to get to the heart of real concerning activities. And 17%, or 170 parents just aren’t monitoring their children at all.

“Some parents believe that “friending” their child on Facebook is adequate to ensure safety, ” said Mike Betron, VP and General Manager of MinorMonitor. “This simply provides a false sense of security as children are still able to engage in private conversations and post questionable material without their parents seeing this as a friend. ”

MinorMonitor provides comfort to parents and spares them lots of wasted time digging through mountains of information, and at the same time makes the child feel more comfortable by being –safely – active online. In addition to its tool, MinorMonitor shares great guidance for parents, and children, on its site, with tips on how to use the Internet and social media responsibly, and safely. This includes guides like: Parental Controls: http://www.minormonitor.com/resource/parental-controls/ and Facebook Safety for Kids: http://www.minormonitor.com/resource/facebook-safety-for-kids/

Some high level helpful reminders are:

•     Know children’s passwords and other login information, and teach your children not to share their passwords or personal information.
•     Keep Facebook profiles set to private, and know Facebook’s other built-in safety features.
•     Teach children about “friending” and that all requests from strangers should be declined.
•     Remind children that information posted online is public.

As technology changes and minors continue to explore the Internet, it is imperative that parents are aware of the online activities their children engage in and take a proactive role in ensuring their safety. A combination of education and free resources like MinorMonitor can help safeguard children from many types of online threats.

About MinorMonitor
Launched May 2011, MinorMonitor was developed by Austin-based Infoglide, a 15+ year technology company that develops deep security and fraud analytics that monitor and manage online reputations, and screen and detect suspicious activities, behaviors for government (such as the Department of Homeland Security TSA screening program), law enforcement, banking, and other big business customers. Infoglide executives developed MinorMonitor to leverage the company’s analytics and extend them as a service to benefit parents growing increasingly concerned over ensuring their child(ren)’s Facebook activities are safe. For more information, follow the company on Twitter @minormonitor or on facebook http://www.facebook.com/minormonitor.

“We built this product with a commitment to listen closely to our users and respond to their suggestions, to really have our community help shape and grow what MinorMonitor can do,” said Mike Betron, general manager, MinorMonitor. “One of the most popular requests from users has been the ability to monitor the whole family from a single MinorMonitor account. We are proud to deliver this capability today.”

MinorMonitor has been adding parent-users at a steady clip since May, growing over 50% month over month. The feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive, as parents continue to seek ways to stay aware of what their children are doing online. While there are many options, and lots of noise around online monitoring, feedback on MinorMonitor is that it’s clean, clear, simple, quick and effective to use. Parents can sign up easily, and activate accounts and tracking, quickly, even if they are not very technically savvy. The fact that the tool is completely free is even more compelling.

And now, support for multiple children is streamed into the product. Registered MinorMonitor users simply go into their account at set up, click on the “add child” button underneath the name currently listed and add the next child’s Facebook credentials – email address and password – just like you did for the first child. A new tab will appear for every additional child you enter. For new users, while setting up the profile, you can add multiple children simply by clicking on the “add child” button for each of your children. You can also delete a child by going into the settings tab and clicking “remove child.”

Within moments of the first entry of every child, parents will get reports for that child, summarizing their activities and friends, and any alerts. To add and monitor additional children, you will need their Facebook email addresses and passwords. MinorMonitor does encourage parents to talk with their children about the tool and discuss that although their activities will be monitored, it will be at a much higher level and less intrusive way than a parent logging right on to their account or being their “friend.”

MinorMonitor was built just for parents to enable a quick, dashboard-view into their children’s Facebook activities and friends. It was created by Infoglide, a government-grade technology company that has been delivering anti-fraud software solutions to federal and state governments and commercial organizations for over 15 years. MinorMonitor gives parents peace of mind by flagging any concerning language, activities or photos of their children. The numbers of children active on Facebook are staggering, with over 20 million active Facebook minors, of which an estimated 7.5 million are under the age of 13.

How MinorMonitor Works:
MinorMonitor, as a free, web-based tool, has sophisticated algorithms that leverage an extensive library and natural language analytics that identify potentially dangerous activities such as bullying, drug use, solicitation, sexual references, and profanity. These algorithms and keyword phrases are continuously updated, with new words added to follow trends and slang. MinorMonitor also watches out for suspicious friends by identifying friends significantly older than the child, friends with a very small number of mutual friends, and friends who post an abnormally high amount of negative content.

MinorMonitor analyzes every type of activity including wall posts, notes, photos, videos, and messages. This continuous monitoring is available to parents at any time through an intuitive, easy-to-navigate dashboard. Proactive alerts may also be set up in order to receive immediate emails for extremely concerning events.

MinorMonitor’s proprietary, analytic technology foundation comes from Infoglide who brought its core capabilities downstream to benefit parents. More than just identifying and flagging concerning keyword phrases, MinorMonitor is also built with unique self-learning and natural language analytics that make it smarter over time, providing a more accurate analysis and fewer false alarms.

About MinorMonitor:
Launched in mid 2011, MinorMonitor is a free, web-based tool that gives parents a quick, easy view into their child(ren)’s Facebook activities and friends, through knowledge-based analytics. Via an intuitive dashboard view, parents can access either a snapshot, or full detail and specifics, of potentially dangerous activities such as bullying, hate crimes, drug use, and sexual references.

MinorMonitor was developed by Austin-based Infoglide, a 15+ year technology company that developed deep security and fraud analytics that monitor and manage online reputations as well as screen and detect suspicious activities and behaviors for government (such as the TSA), law enforcement, banking, and other big business customers. Infoglide executives developed MinorMonitor to leverage the company’s analytics and extend them as a service to benefit those parents who are growing increasingly concerned over ensuring their child(ren)’s Facebook activities are safe.

Online Peace of Mind Desperately Needed:

According to a recently released survey by Consumer Reports, there are over 20 million active Facebook minors and an estimated 7.5 million children using Facebook under the age of 13. Consumer Reports estimates that an alarming 1 million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on the site in the past year.

With increasing – and disheartening – stories of cyber bullying, online stalking and predators, hate crimes, and generally concerning conversations and relationships building through Facebook, parents feel helpless and worried about what their child is doing, saying, and “friending” online. There are some solutions, at a cost, and may or may not be effective for parents today, nothing is the silver bullet parents are asking for.

Austin-based Infoglide has been perfecting its own security and fraud analytics for over 15 years, for customers such as the US Department of Homeland Security and several other Fortune 500 banks, insurance companies, and retailers. A company comprised of concerned parents and grandparents, it set out to apply its security intelligence to a web-based tool parents could use to monitor their child’s Facebook activities and friends.

“We are so very proud to introduce MinorMonitor to all of the parents out there worried about what their children are up to on Facebook,” said Mike Shultz, CEO of Infoglide and head of the MinorMonitor effort. “We built MinorMonitor to take advantage of our deep security analytic technology, and extend this as a free service to benefit parents who want to make sure their child’s Facebook activities are safe.”

Validation of Solution:

Even before it was in private beta, MinorMonitor was spotted by experts in the field. It was discussed during an episode on The CBS Early Show as an innovative solution for monitoring children on Facebook.  Additionally, early testers are sharing great feedback as well, including Marilyn Berry, a Seattle, Washington mom of a 14-year-old girl, very active on Facebook. Marilyn says: “As an early tester, I’ve been using MinorMonitor for a couple weeks, now. I am very satisfied with this wonderful new service. MinorMonitor has provided me with alerts, and with this invaluable service, I’m able to keep track of my daughter.”

How MinorMonitor Works:

MinorMonitor, as a free web-based tool, has sophisticated algorithms that leverage an extensive keyword phrase library (of over 3,000 keywords) and natural language analytics that identify potentially dangerous activities such as bullying, drug use, solicitation, sexual references, and profanity. These algorithms and keyword phrases are continuously updated, with new words added to follow trends and slang. MinorMonitor also watches out for suspicious friends by identifying friends significantly older than the child, friends with a very small number of mutual friends, and friends who post an abnormally high amount of negative content.

MinorMonitor analyzes every type of activity including wall posts, notes, photos, videos, and messages. This continuous monitoring is available to parents at any time through an intuitive, easy-to-navigate dashboard. Proactive alerts may also be set up in order to receive immediate emails for extremely concerning events.

MinorMonitor’s proprietary, analytic technology foundation comes from Infoglide who brought its core capabilities downstream to benefit parents. More than just identifying and flagging concerning keyword phrases, MinorMonitor is also built with unique self-learning and natural language analytics that make it smarter over time, providing a more accurate analysis and fewer false alarms.

How to Get Started:

MinorMonitor does strongly advise its parent users to work with their child, communicate openly to secure their log in and password, and let the child know MinorMonitor will be at work to put parents at ease, resulting in a child actually having more freedom online. Getting started is as easy as clicking on the Get Started link at www.minormonitor.com, and then creating a name and password and entering your child’s password credentials into Facebook Connect. Within moments of granting your child’s Facebook login credentials, parents will see an analysis of their child’s activities and friends.

About MinorMonitor:

Launched in mid 2011, MinorMonitor is a free web-based tool that gives parents a quick, easy view into their child(ren)’s Facebook activities and friends, through knowledge-based analytics. Via an intuitive dashboard view, parents can access either a snapshot, or full detail and specifics, of potentially dangerous activities such as bullying, hate crimes, drug use, and sexual references.

MinorMonitor was developed by Austin-based Infoglide, a 15+ year technology company that developed deep security and fraud analytics that monitor and manage online reputations as well as screen and detect suspicious activities and behaviors for government (such as the TSA), law enforcement, banking, and other big business customers. Infoglide executives developed MinorMonitor to leverage the company’s analytics and extend them as a service to benefit those parents who are growing increasingly concerned over ensuring their child(ren)’s Facebook activities are safe.

To learn more, see www.minormonitor.com, or follow the company on Facebook at www.facebook.com/minormonitor or Twitter @minormonitor.