Excerpt from NetIDme News:

To mark it’s ten year anniversary and to raise awareness of its work combating online child sexual abuse images, the Internet Watch Foundation are hosting a series of road show conferences:

31 October 2007, Grosvenor Hilton, Edinburgh

8 November 2007, Radisson SAS, Belfast

21 November 2007, Millennium Copthorne Hotel, Cardiff

Conferences begin at 11am, are hosted by a local MP, feature an in-depth presentation by the IWF and lead into an expert panel discussion inviting comments and questions from delegates. Lunch will follow and events will finish at 1.30pm.

Places are limited, register online

Read the full NetIDme article here

Read the full interview here: NetIDme CEO Interview

Teenagers are exploiting the easy availability of pre-paid credit cards to buy alcohol and over 18 DVDs, and gamble on the internet.

The cards, which allow youngsters to top them up with cash before going on a spending spree, do not require any age verification when purchased from a retail outlet or purchased online.

Credit cards issued by banks require adults to go through numerous credit and identity checks before they are issued. But under the loophole, pre-paid cards do not require any of the checks.

The Children’s Charities’ Coalition for Internet Safety, said underage buying of goods and services was becoming a growing problem.

Secretary, John Carr said: “We have been calling for better age verification system for several years to deal with a huge range of things arising out of the online world.”

“It suddenly has got a whole lot worse with the emergence of these pre-paid credit cards. They allow you to go and register yourself at any age you want. They don’t do any check up on the information that you provide them with. The financial services industry needs to step in and stop these practices.” (more)

North Carolina legislators are weighing the merits of a unique bill aimed at governing non-adult access to Internet social networking sites, including thorny issues on the role of parental approval and whether the measure can actually help curb child predation.Senate Bill 132–The Protect Children From Sexual Predators Act–was passed by the state Senate in May and now resides in House judiciary and appropriations committees in a modified form. Read more

NetIDme Service

The social networking site, MySpace provides a forum to meet old friends, catch up on news, and listen to the latest music. But like the real world, it also has its share of undesirables. The online site has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders among its 180 million members, it was revealed yesterday. (more)

Check out this recent independent review of the NetIDme service.

Excerpt: NetIDme is specially targeted at young users of internet chat rooms due to the fact that youngsters are vulnerably exposed to internet predators. With this in mind, NetIDme was established in 2004 to provide a secure solution for social networking, online dating, instant messaging, e-commerce, online gaming and online chatting. It is the first identity verification service for the internet. At the time of writing, no other company worldwide has taken the similar approach in tackling the problems occurring in social interactions via the internet.

Recent NetIDme developments:

• NetIDme OpenID
• NetIDme CardSpace

Disney is launching DGamer, a social network for gamers. It’s set to launch initially in USA, in may 2008. The community will be accessible through Nintendo DS and Disney’s website. The plan is that users will be able to play each other and chat, as well as create personalized avatars, befriend other users, track high scores and vote in polls. More from Mashable

NetIDme Beta Version Due Shortly

Cyberbullying is a significant problem for US teens, shows a recent survey