Thursday, January 17, 2008

eye on what?

EyeOnIM.com, they call it.
The website caught my attention as the founder is Sabeer Bhatia's partner in his latest SabSeBolo.com. It claims to help parents protect their children online. Here's how:

"EyeOnIM... will automatically start monitoring and archiving the IM conversation as well as capture the files that are transferred... since EyeOnIM also archives all the chat sessions, you can always view the chat conversation at a later time.... Of course, EyeOnIM is not a spying tool..."
http://eyeonim.com/eyeonim/html/How Does EyeOnIM Work.htm.

I find it the whole concept extremely disgusting: telling parents that it is alright to spy on their kids. There are healthier ways to keep your children safe while maintaining decency and complete trust. After all, a child will not learn to trust if he/she is not trusted; and trust and respect go farther than anything else in carrying through your message.

I'm quite sure the people who would use EyeOnIM are the sorts who would also not hesitate in rummaging through their children's cupboards, or school bags, or tap their phones or even shadow them. And if they are doing any of this, their relationship with their child is so screwed that they are probably responsible for any wayward behaviour.

I'm half inclined to set up a website or at least a forum that lets children figure out if their parents are electronically spying on them. I wonder how the parents would like that!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

couldn't agree more. i'm all for providing kids with a service to check if their parents are spying on them. how about something for kids to spy on their parents?

Anonymous said...

Spector360 is another service but for monitoring employees. :-)