Would you let your child visit random webcams?

While it’s true that Internet fear goes rather over the top at times, there are a number of services that could be disasters waiting to happen.

Though parents try to educate their children about Internet safety, then try to keep an eye on what they’re doing — all while their kids are technologically more savvy than them — certain services come along that are simply asking for trouble.

A haven for exhibitionists (and perverts?), services such as ChatRoulette.com offer to hook you up with random strangers on the web, all conducted via webcams.

Stereotypically, many people who use these services are men looking for women, often with ‘interesting’ ideas of what’s acceptable to do in front of a camera.

It’s common for users to request each other to perform sexualised acts — hardly something appropriate, desirable or even legal for your kids to be involved with.

Yet I am aware that a number of teenagers who are quite happily using these services, often with the express intention of getting some kind of ‘shock value’.

Many of these services are, by nature, pretty anonymous. There are no restrictions to signup and security is lax.

It’s unlikely that the services themselves will be regulated, and even if some more legitimate software exists, there’ll always be shadier software lurking. With the way web sites and services become popular these days — spreading virally on social networking services like Facebook — a new one could pop up every day.

Many organisations and children’s groups have spoken out, calling for better security and reporting measures to be implemented — measures such as a ‘panic button’ that can alert the police or other legitimate services if a child has a concern about something they’ve seen or experienced online.

Ultimately, though, the responsibility comes down to the parents or carers to educate their kids, regulate Internet usage in a proactive, not reactive, way, and be around to support their kids if they have bad experiences online.

Video dating embraced by young men and no-one else, study suggests

In less than surprising news given the stereotypes, young men (under 25) were the most likely people to be in favour of introducing webcams into online dating and video dating web sites.

On the other hand, nearly three-quarters of women said it was a definite no-no, particularly on dating sites.

That’s according to several studies by MakeFriendsOnline.com.

Last year, a survey of their members discovered that men wanted it, but over half of women didn’t.

As online dating which includes the use of videos is still rising in popularity, the site decided to run the survey again. This time they found that nearly three-quarters of male respondents liked webcams and wanted to use them on dating sites, but 63% of female respondents didn’t.

This suggest that men on cams might be increasingly talking to themselves, and also illustrates a marked trend with the percentage of women unwilling to use webcams increasing at a convincing rate.

The increased availability of Webcam Sites was reflected in the overall results which show an additional 12% of women have tried Webcam Dating since the last survey, but of those, a massive two thirds didn’t like it and wouldn’t do it again. By comparison, the male figures remain fairly static, the majority being as willing and eager to use a webcam this year as they were last.

The MD of MakeFriendsOnline, Martin Bysh, said, “In a market where it is notoriously difficult to attract and retain female users, MakeFriendsOnline is very proud and protective of itÂ’s female membership, which at 51% is probably the best male/female ratio you’ll find anywhere. We would not want to alienate our female members by offering a feature that makes them uncomfortable and certainly not one which would actively put them off joining our site. We will therefore not be adding webcams to MFO.”

What do you think? If you’re open to the idea of online dating, would you be put off by the concept of using a web cam?