1 October 2008
October’s InSight – FOSI’s monthly Newsletter – now online
The October issue of InSight now available, with news of FOSI’s recent Roundtable event at Googleplex, FOSI awards, and more.
2 October 2008
Jugendschutz in der Praxis
Once again, FOSI has been asked to be a guest speaker at Austria’s Internet Service Providers Annual Summit in Vienna on 2nd October 2008. Speaking on Jugendschutz in der Praxis (Practical steps toward better online youth protection), David Miles, FOSI’s European Development Director will also making a joint announcement with Confoki, whose browser plug-ins use integrated ICRA labels to help parents create a safer Internet experience for their children.
This important summit will also include speakers from the Austrian Internet industry, as well as senior government
9 September 2008
InSight – The FOSI Newsletter Launched!
InSight is FOSI’s monthly newsletter. It’s designed to keep our members and those that support our mission up-to-date with the latest news, events and initiatives
18 August 2008
POWDER Last Call
For the last 18 months, FOSI has been leading work at the W3C to establish a new technology that will make a real difference to the way that high quality, trusted and appropriate online content is discovered and recognised by end users. Known as the Protocol for Web Description Resources, or POWDER, it is closely tied in with our work in the Quatro Project under the EU Safer Internet Programme that is creating a platform through which a wide variety of trustmarks can be identified and authenticated automatically.
The specification documents for POWDER have reached their Last Call stage — that is, final reviews are being sought before test implementations are finalised. Comments are welcome from all interested parties, whether a W3C member or not. Subject to successfully completing the W3C process, POWDER is due to become a full Recommendation around the end of 2008.
W3C is holding a stakeholder meeting on Tuesday 16th September at Yahoo!’s Mission College Campus in Santa Clara where guests will be able to meet some of the working group members and discuss future uses of POWDER. The date and location were chosen to take advantage of FOSI’s events planned for that week. The event is free but registration is essential.
European Commission Public Consultation
FOSI has published its response to the European Commission’s consultation on Age Verification, Cross Media Rating and Social Networking. As has the Broadband Stakeholder Group which runs the cross media content information group in which FOSI is a participant.
Cox Tween Internet Safety Survey Results To Be Discussed At 3rd Annual Internet Safety Summit
Cox Communications, in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and TV host and children’s advocate John Walsh are presenting original research on the behavior of young people online. Together, the organizations are working to help parents and guardians understand the potential dangers of the Internet and how they can help keep their kids safer online. This year, the study and discussion extends to the “tween” population, children between the ages of eight and twelve years old. The organization has released a fraction of the research findings, some of which was encouraging.
Complete findings from the Cox Tween Internet Safety Survey will be made available at a press briefing on July 22nd, when Cox, NCMEC, Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted,” and Lauren Nelson, Miss America 2007, convene for the third annual Cox Communications National Summit on Internet Safety.
International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC)
The first-ever International Youth Advisory Congress (IYAC) will be held, as up to 150 young people from all around the world come together in London to meet with representatives from across government, the police, child protection communities and the online and mobile industries. The theme is online safety and security.
The result will be the Children and Young Persons Global Online Charter. This will build the roadmap and strategy for industry, government, law enforcement and education sectors to sign up with a strategy that ultimately will be presented to the UN in October as part of the 2008 Resolution of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Youth Protection Round Table
The Youth Protection Roundtable, which brings together child welfare organizations and educationalists from across Europe (including FOSI), has published its latest newsletter.
International Media Literacy Research Forum
Stephen Balkam will be taking part in the inaugural meeting of this new forum, set up by the UK’s media regulator, Ofcom. The event includes keynote speeches from former BBC Director General, now British Film Institute chair, Greg Dyke and Ofcom chair, Lord Currie. Stephen will be taking part in a panel looking at the future of media literacy research.
Youth Protection Round Table
Phil Archer will be among the delegates at the third and most exciting event in this project. Meeting in Gößweinstein, near Nuremberg, the round table members will meet 20 young people from 7 European 
countries: Bulgaria, Finland, Greece, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and Germany to discuss the many threats to online safety and how they can be addressed. Additionally, the winners of the Safer Internet Day 2008 Competition will be announced, and over two days a wide variety of topics will be discussed. There’ll be a discussion on the effectiveness of filters as part of online safety and a review of the impact of online safety legislation in Germany (the JMStV).
A podcast will be made available during the event.
The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It
FOSI’s CEO Stephen Balkam will moderate a Q & A session with Jonathan Zittrain, who’s new book, The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It, is published on 14th April.
Book Description
This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity — and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation — and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”
The event will take place at Google’s Washington DC Offices and is being arranged in association with the Berkman Center at Harvard University.
Telecoms Web 2.0
FOSI’s CTO Phil Archer joins a distinguished panel at this high profile event at the Sofitel Berlin Schweizerhof. In a plenary session he’ll be presenting the new Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) (under development at the W3C) and explaining how it fits in with the Quatro Plus project and the future of ICRA labels. In addition, Phil will also lead a pre-conference briefing with the W3C’s Germany & Austria office manager, Thomas Tikwinski, entitled “Developing mobile Web 2.0 applications which deliver high quality, personalised content over multiple platforms.”
FOSI Comments on the SIP-Bench Synthesis Report
In December 2007, The European Commission published its “2007 Benchmark of tools to filter potentially harmful Internet content.”
The document makes specific reference to ICRA and calls for a future system that matches closely what is already planned for the future of ICRA (which is part of FOSI). The full text of FOSI’s comment is available.
UK Content Providers Make New Media Literacy Commitment
The Family Online Safety Institute is among the signatories to an important new set of good practice guidelines for the UK audio visual industry.
In a fast changing media world, research carried out by the UK media regulator Ofcom (see link below) shows that consumers, particularly parents, want clear information about the content they and their children can view or access, whether it is online, on a mobile phone or on television. Building on existing good practice, these principles promote common sense, simplicity and transparency to ensure that all users are empowered to make safe and informed choices about commercially provided content.
Such a commitment by major broadcasters, online content providers and social network sites, is entirely in line with FOSI’s mission. The provision of clear information for parents has long been at the heart of FOSI, which incorporates ICRA. The Institute therefore welcomes the new good practice guide, and is proud to have made a contribution to its creation.
Confoki Online
Today sees the start of a new project backed by The Internet Service Providers in Austria, FOSI and Zit Zentrum Für Innovation und Technologie. Called Content for Kids, “Confoki,” it will provide new browser plug-ins to work directly with ICRA data, due for release in autumn 2008.
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