Introduction

A review of six of Europe's most popular Internet Service Providers' (ISPs) sites was made between March and April 2003. Most of these ISPs have sites in a number of languages and, if available, the English (UK not US), French, German and Spanish sites were included ¹. These will all be considered as separate ISPs for this review so, in total, we looked at seventeen sites, not including linked children's sites.

The aim of the review is not to "name and shame", so individual ISPs are not identified. The aim is to give a snapshot of how ISPs are rising to the challenge of protecting children on-line and to identify best practice. Certain criteria were used to assess the ISPs' performance, based on previous EESC recommendations in this area.

Summary of the results

• Only 9 out of the 17 ISPs reviewed had links to safety guidelines for parents and children from their sites and only 5 of these had links from their homepages. Even those ISPs which did provide safety information did not always make it easy to find. However, the guidelines that were provided for children were clearly written and easy to read
• Only 5 ISPs had information about the potential dangers of chat rooms on chat room pages. (A further 7 had some form of guidelines but these tended to focus more on codes of conduct rather than on protecting the user)
• Children can easily enter chat rooms for adults and adults can easily enter chat rooms signaled for minors. One ISP did however state that children under 12 needed parental consent to use its chat rooms which meant parents setting up a family account and registering the child. Other ISPs did not provide any reliable way of preventing children from entering adult chat rooms. Although some ISPs required the user to provide their date of birth they did not necessarily then prevent the under age user from entering chatrooms which were indicated for adults.
• 5 ISPs had clear explanations about filtering and rating programmes on their own sites. Some others linked to information about rating. 3 had a link to parental control clearly on their home pages. However, no information about filtering and rating could be found on the sites of 4 ISPs.
• 11 out of the 17 ISPs had help lines for its chat rooms to report suspicious behaviour.
• Only 6 ISPs linked to information about the EU hotlines where people can report illegal material.
• All the ISPs indicated that they were not responsible for content but most stated that they had the right to remove those who use unacceptable practices or provide unacceptable content according to their own terms.
• None of the ISPs reviewed indicated that they were obliged under the EU E-commerce Directive to remove illegal content if they are alerted to its presence.
• On the whole the ISPs we tested did not provide special areas/sites for children. Only 4 had their own children's sites but none appeared to have its own chat rooms. Only 2 had links to chat rooms specifically for children.

Methodology

Ultimately, the aim of the review is to produce 'best practice' for protecting children using the Internet. In order to do this, criteria were used to find out if, and how, these ISPs ensure that children are protected from the dangers, which are known to exist on the Internet. The criteria, as a list of five questions, most with sub-questions, are listed in the Annex.

It was not the purpose of the review to 'name and shame' particular ISPs and therefore names are not mentioned.

Some provisos must also be included:

• Every effort was made to find positive answers to the questions but we cannot guarantee that we found every piece of relevant information and may have missed links. In fact we spent many hours trying to find relevant links and information for this report. Sometimes it seemed as if the ISP did not want users to find such information because the links did not indicate clearly what they linked to, and often, when the information was found, its language was difficult and the documents lengthy.
• Research on these sites took place at different times over a month long period. It must be noted that content on the Internet is ephemeral so all comments are based only on the time of viewing the site.

1. Guidelines on Internet safety

And are they clearly signposted ?

We found 9 ISPS had links to specific safety guidelines for parents and children from their sites and only 5 of these actually had links to the safety guidelines from their homepages although the links were not clear in most cases. 15 of the ISPs in total had some sort of guidelines on their websites or linked directly to some on another site. However, not all these guidelines gave advice about staying safe online but instead were codes of conduct or netiquette. They were usually presented as a list of do's and don'ts (some including the occasional bit of safety advice). For example, they told users to treat others with respect, not to abuse others nor use the service to spam others.

3 ISPs had a clear link 'parental control' on their homepages but as the pages reached were concerned only with filtering content they will be mentioned in the appropriate section.

Chat rooms

All but one of the ISPs had their own chat rooms (and that had a link to one). We found that only 5 of the 17 ISPS had guidelines about the potential dangers of chat rooms on their chat room pages. A further 7 had links to some guidelines, but they were codes of conduct which contained little about protecting the user. Of these 12 with some form of guidelines, 5 were not linked from the first page of the chat rooms. Only 2 ISPs had a warning about possible dangers written clearly on the chat page with links to further information and another had a message to parents written on its page with link to its safety advice.

The codes of conduct, or netiquette, all included warnings that the ISP reserved the right to remove users/content that was obscene, pornographic, violent, racist. But either in the etiquette or terms of use, these ISPs also stated that they were not responsible for the content which had been created by its users (see below in section under "Notice and Take Down Policy").

14 ISPs had links to message boards/forums/groups/clubs but only 2 of these had link to safety guidelines, with a further 3 linking to 'netiquette' on the appropriate link page. 14 ISPs had links to messenger software which needed to be downloaded. Of these, only one had a link directly to advice to parents on safety and 3 had links to rules/code of conduct. One ISP which did not link to any guidelines clearly stated that users had to confirm that they were 18 years old and over before they could download the software.

Some of the ISPs also had links to safety guidelines or codes of conduct when a user was in a chat room (not all chat rooms were visited) and one ISP, whose chat rooms we entered, offered a choice of whether the user wanted to accept strong language or not on the first time they entered a chat room on its site (see also under filtering).

Although ISPs list content which is not acceptable on their sites, most do not make it clear what you do if you find it. Whilst we found 11 ISPs which had help lines specifically for its chat rooms so that suspicious behaviour could be reported (and of the 12 visited for this review, 8 had a link inside the chat rooms as well), we found only 6 linked to information about the EU hotlines where people can report illegal material.

Plain language

Guidelines that were signalled for children were very straightforward with bulleted points which made them easy to read. Guidelines for parents were not difficult but tended to be presented in block text which makes it harder for a user to read. The codes of conduct tended to be lengthy and, in some cases, not easy to understand.

We found only 2 ISPs had well presented straightforward safety guidelines on chat for all its users and these were linked from a number of areas on the website, although not from the home page.

Content of guidelines

We found 14 ISPs advised users not to give out personal information to anyone they meet on the Internet in either their own guidelines or those linked to the site with one of them displaying this on its chat room page. And 8 advised users that people they meet on the Internet may not be who they say they are with 1 of them displaying this message on its chat room page.

2 & 3. Children and chat rooms and areas for children

On the whole the ISPs we looked at did not provide special areas/sites for children. We could only find 4 of those reviewed which have their own children's sites and none of those appeared to have its own chat rooms. Only 2 of them had obvious links to their children's sites on their home pages. Another ISP had links to children's sites but this was as an option on other pages including the chat page. (And it allowed children over 12 into its own chat rooms.)

Only 2 ISPs with links to chat rooms specifically for children. One of these said in its advertisements that it did have them on its site (but as a non-member, this could not be ascertained). The other had links to other websites which were especially for children.

Apart from 2 ISPs which did not allow children of any age, some of the other ISPs had teen rooms and ones which they labelled 'adults' or 'over 21s'. One ISP said that children under 16 had to get parental consent but did not explain how (does it need email consent or is it just a child saying that s/he has it?). Another ISP said that children under 12 years of age needed parental consent to use its chat rooms which meant parents setting up a family account and registering the child.

We found 2 ISPs that said their chat rooms were open to all ages and another that said they were open to people between the ages of 8 and 77.

From the above information, we conclude that most ISPs allow children into at least some of their chat rooms. Some ISPs required the user to provide their date of birth but even if the user was older, or younger, than the signed age limits for a chat room, it is not clear if there is some mechanism to stop them from entering ². Another did not require the user to give their age and allowed anyone into rooms signed for under 18 years old.

We found that 9 ISPs said that chat room users patrolled their chat rooms to, as one ISP says, 'uphold the code of conduct'. Some ISPs said that this was a special position and users had to apply for it (albeit they would not be employed by the ISP nor paid for the work) whereas other ISPs implied that it was up to all users to be watchful in chat rooms and report any misdemeanour. From the information which the ISPs gave about this 'service', we understood that it did not mean that the chat room was moderated. In fact one ISP which said it did have patrols, explicitly stated in its parents' advice that its chat rooms were not moderated.

See also in next section use of profanity filter by some ISPs.

4. Filtering and rating of Internet content

We found 5 ISPs had clear explanations about filtering and rating programmes on their own sites, some with links to commercial software and one to a freeware program.

We found 2 ISPs that offered their own filtering and rating programme: one as part of its membership and the other as a subscription service.

As mentioned in the section on guidelines, another 3 ISPs had the link 'parental control' clearly on their home pages. Two of these links led to an 'in-house' filtering system which offered parents an explanation about this system and, at no cost, a very simple to complete form to activate the controls. Users could choose to disable access to the ISPs' chat, email, and message boards, filter out violent content, filter out hate and racist content, filter out content about weapons and/or filter out sexually oriented content. The third ISP took the user to a page with an explanation of filtering software and links to ICRA and to commercial filtering software' websites.

We found 4 ISPs that offered a 'profanity filter' in their chat rooms. This enabled users to avoid obscenities in the chat. Two of these ISPs also had other links to information about filtering and rating (one of these links did not work at time of review).

Finally, 1 ISP did have a link to 'protecting your children online' which led to complete information about setting up the system to use the ICRA content rating system. The only link we found to this information was placed on the first page of a link to an `adult´ area.

We could not find any information about filtering and rating programs linked from or on the sites of 4 ISPs.

5. Notice and Take Down (NTD) policy

Most ISPs state that they have the right to remove those who use unacceptable practices or content which is unacceptable (according to its terms) in their terms of use, legal conditions or similar document. They also state that they have no liability for content of linked sites.

The EU e-commerce directive ³ requires ISPs to take action to remove or block access straight away if they are alerted to the presence of illegal material. However they are not liable if they are not aware of its existence. This policy only applies to illegal material not 'unacceptable' material. We did not find any mention of these obligations on the web pages of the ISPs reviewed.

6. Inappropriate content

Although not a specific question, it was impossible to avoid noticing inappropriate wording and content on some of the ISPs reviewed.

For example, the names of chat rooms can be very specific - 'a lincoln horny room - sexy fun lincoln' in a general list and 'younger teens 4 older teens' in a teen chat room list. Also in this category are the names of links, for example 'Erotica' on a home page that leads to some highly explicit material.

In the search category section of one ISP, we clicked on a main category 'kids and teens', then on the sub category 'computers'. From here we clicked on a further subcategory 'chats and forums'. On this page there were links to a number of kids' chat rooms but at the top of the page 'sponsored links' were listed:

Chat in your ZIP code - It's free to chat and view webcams of women and men in your area:
Chat with Cute Singles - Looking for love or friendship? Free chat, email, and more
Chat Now - Instant message singles online now who are looking to meet you!

The ISP did state on the page that it did not endorse these links.

Another ISP has special sites for kids - on one of these there is a link to gambling pages which are for children and adults - you are presented with buttons to click ' I am over 18' and 'I am under 18' but the user can still reach gambling pages.

June 2003

Conclusions of the hearing at the Economic and Social Committee - 6 June 2003

Contact

Ann Davison, ERICA, at EESC or on 'ann.davison@esc.eu.int'
Valerie Thompson, ERICA, on 'vthompson@beuc.org'
Chris Andrew, ERICA, on 'chris.andrew123@btinternet.com'

Annex - Criteria used for assessing how well children are protected on the Internet

1. Does the ISP have Internet safety guidelines on its web site?

1a. Are they clearly signposted from the home page ?

1b. Are guidelines about the potential dangers of using a chat room displayed prominently just before entry to a chat room?

1c. Are the guidelines easy to understand? (plain language)

1d. Do they advise users including children:

• not to give out personal information including address, telephone and mobile numbers etc?
• that people they 'meet' on the Internet might not be who they say they are?

1e. Does the ISP advise parents and children how to get help if they are concerned about something they have seen on the Internet?

If yes, what is the advice?

2. Does the ISP provide on site chat rooms or links to another site (or sites) which does have them?

If so:

a. does it provide signposted chat rooms for children?

b. are there age restrictions for joining a chat room?

c. are the children's chat rooms moderated?

d. does the ISP have a help line specifically for the chat room so that suspicious behaviour can be reported?

3. Does the ISP signpost areas especially for children? (either on-site or links to other sites)

4. Does the ISP promote the use of filtering software?

5. Does the ISP say on site if it operates a notice and take down policy (NTD), based on an easily accessible and simple procedure?

¹ It must be noted that whilst these sites were all visited on more than one occasion, web content changes frequently and therefore the information may change over a period of time.

² Most ISPs state that it is illegal to impersonate anyone else but this might not stop someone signing up as a young person.

³ Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council