I want to get my 12 year old daughter a web-based email account that has spam filters good enough to keep out adult material. Maybe something where only emails coming from a pre-approved list will be received.

[I also don't want to get her an account that is too obviously for kids because she'll think I think of her as too young. That in-between age thing.]

Anyone try anything that they'd recommend?

What about AOL? You can then set the controls yourself.

The best thing, I have found, is to somehow discreetly monitor the activity of your child on the web. Talk to them honestly.

My son is a grown man but I have lots of neices and nephews.

Ditto. I found out the hard way that while AOL has the best filters out there, unless you're IN THE ROOM while they're in the chatrooms, reading emails, etc. they WILL get access (and a lot of it) to stuff you don't want to them having access to.

They even have their own acronyms on when to watch what you're typing because a parent's in the room.

What I've done with MY email and spam is with Eudora, instead of filtering OUT, I filter IN. I put what key words I want to keep and trash everything else.

Good luck (and why have we seen no pictures??!!! :zoinks: )

Mindspring - believe it or not - has some great features for kids. And they don't look baby-ish like some other options we looked into.

I set up my son's email account and put on the spam filter that they offer. I tested it for a couple of weeks first and found that it worked very well. ZERO spam - I think it's some sort of miracle. lol

I also installed my own version of spy ware however - just because I'm one of those paranoid parents.... I set up his email to leave a copy on the server and once a week I scan (on my PC) his email account to make sure nobody is sending him stuff I don't want him to see. And again...no problems. It really seems to be working even though he's signed up to receive newletters, joined online kids' clubs, etc.

They also offer a special web browser (Monkey something? I dunno - we didn't use it) that you can use for the kids that comes in multiple levels all the way from stuff for the very little to the more mature (in between age). Mine are 12 & 14 Colin...I totally know what you're talking about.

It's a "fun" age...or so they tell me. lol :rolleyes:

Oh...I have to agree here too. My kids' computer is set up in the same room as my office and I moved their desk so that I can see their monitor from where I sit. Mine is in reverse....my back is to the corner so they can't see MY monitor.

:nyanya:

I run my own mail server and have the DNS for all my domains pointing to my home server for all mail.

My 11 year old daughter's email address is off of our "family" domain name....

I have the server sending all mail that comes into her box into one of my email boxes.....

I look through it (I don't read it, just scan through for the crap) and then forward it to another email address on the server...

Her email client points to her "real" address on the send side and to the fake address on the receive side...

There is no filter as good as her old man...lololol...

She knows I do this and knows why I do this.... After she misanswered a question on neopets, she started getting a shitload of spam and I showed some of it to her, she agreed that she didn't want to get the crap...

Just for info, I use Viking server under windows as my mail server, behind a physical firewall... Pretty bulletproof mainly because it is a 3rd party server package so it does not get targeted too often. It is not open to the various security risks that iis is. It takes about 2 minutes to set up and is shareware...

I have my 9 year old and 11 year old signed up with www.kinderstart.com it's an email server for kids, porn is filtered and its free too
Slowhand

P.s Nice to meet everyone (as I am new to this board)

My son had AOL. I set parental controls.

His computer was in the living room and he didn't go online unless I was there with him.

Daily, I would check his mail first and get rid of anything that was spam or looked like spam. Then, he would get to it.

Since I'm not real computer savvy, this worked well for the Wonder Years.

My 12 year old daughter was using Yahoo mail and there is no spam whatsover, but her account got locked up with the super security they use, and she couldn't get in herself. Her mom tried accessing the account and was not able to figure it out either.

This is really interesting issue to deal with as a porn webmaster Colin.. for all the claims about parents taking responsibility to block porn sites and monitor access, when it comes to our own kids I think most of us find that without the child's co-operation it's a pretty damn hard thing to do.

SpamKiller, which McAfee recently aquired, is good as they provide an automatic update of filters based on actually spam they are catching.. like they do with anti-virus profiles.
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_desc...fid,5155,00.asp

Another nice feature is that you can run the application on your own PC to wash her mail without it affecting her in any way. Although you would have access to all her incoming messages.. at least you wouldn't actually need to look at each one.

I think Opti made a good point. Does anyone else find this ironic?

Not at all ... i think its a good eye opener for us to be aware of what the general public are complaining about & to have to face the same problems.

I didn't even realize Colin was a daddy ... :huh:

My kids are still a little young for email accounts, but I'll probably set them up with yahoo accounts as yahoo seems to have the better filters these days. I'm thinking of just routing their email throuh me and the forwading onto them and of course as they grow older and show more responsibility, they'll have less restrictions. I'm really less concerned about adult sites than I am hate sites, religious sites or bombmaking sites....

E has his one from school and he uses it at home, though I wouldn't put it past him to have a couple hidden Yahoo accounts... I go thru his computer quite often, checking the history and stuff that he doesnt know how to delete ;)

try aol

Colin, Hotmail has a good feature to use several levels of security filters for your account. If you choose the exclusive filter, only e-mails from pre-aproved addies will make it through. It's a bitch that you have to add everybody to your safe list, but that will pretty much keep out everything else. :D

Bad thing is, I think she could figure out how to turn off that filter by herself, without too much effort. <_<