WEB SITES AND WEB PAGES

The World Wide Web is based on a client–server model: A user, or client, specifically requests a Web page from a host, or server. Web pages and their Web sites are identified by the server and accessed through uniform resource locators (URLs). The URL for NetSafeKids is http://www.netsafekids.org.

You can reach a Web site by typing its URL into a browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can also click on a link that you find in other Web-site pages, instant messages, or e-mail, or through search engines. Another way to access a site is by selecting a “bookmark” or “favorite” on a computer in a public area, such as an Internet cafe or a library.

“Browsing” the World Wide Web, which carries more than two billion pages of text, still and moving images, and sound, offers children a wealth of educational, social, and cultural resources and up-to-the minute information.

Caution!

• Lack of advertising restrictions can expose children to a number of marketing ploys and unauthorized use of personal information. Web sites can mislead, offer inaccurate information, or promote hate, violence, cults, drugs, and have other inappropriate content.
  
  
• The adult online industry uses Web pages to present most of its material today. Links to sexually explicit Web sites are extremely easy to find and can be accessed by children through any Internet channel, either deliberately or accidentally.
  
  
• Kids might accidentally reach inappropriate Web content through common errors in typing a URL. Pornographers often take over domain names associated with common misspellings or errors (such as when a child types in the extension “.com” instead of “.org” or “.edu”) and link them to pornographic sites.
  
  
• Another concern for children is an advertising practice known as “mousetrapping,” where someone trying to leave one Web site is automatically forwarded to another site. Although this technology has legitimate uses, such as in e-shopping, adult Web-site operators pay other sites to forward traffic to them. Forwarding visitors can be a lucrative practice. For children, however, mousetrapping can be a frightening experience involving many pages of unwanted content. Sometimes users are so scared and rattled that they resort to unplugging the computer to get rid of the objectionable material.

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