From San Francisco Chronicle
With the brewing controversies about Facebook and privacy, not to mention news stories about the dangers of cyber abuse, the last thing parents might want to do is let their children get into online social networking.
But Togetherville Inc., a Palo Alto start up that came out of beta earlier this week, hopes to alleviate those fears with a social networking service tailored to children ages 6 through 10.
The free service creates a secured network that gives children access to the benefits of social networking while giving parents oversight to make sure their kids are shielded from potential dangers until they are old enough to handle the Web.
"What we want to do is build good digital citizens,'' founder and CEO Mandeep Dhillon said during a recent interview at The Chronicle.
Dhillon, who is himself the father of three children, said that at a time when even young kids have access to technology, "there's no point in keeping kids off the Web.''
But on Togetherville, no one who is not authorized by the parent can contact the child. Nor can anyone outside the network gain access to a child's information or postings, including through search engines.
There are adult Facebook members who are pressing for that same level of privacy.
Parents create the account using their Facebook login information, but the Togetherville site operates in a separate world outside of Facebook.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?&entry_id=64057#ixzz0ok0gYwc1
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