Families, Schools, and Law Enforcement Helped by McGruff Browser

The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and Children's Educational Network (CEN), in an effort to take a bite out of Internet crimes against kids, announce the launch of McGruff Kid Safe Browser(http://www.McGruffBrowser.com ). This new "keep kids safe online" software, using CEN's The Ultimate Kids Internet (http://www.TUKI.com ) technology, will come complete with easy-to-use parental controls that allow children to surf the Internet in a safer and more educational environment that is the perfect tool for schools, law enforcement and families.

The Internet is accessed each day by approximately 53 million American youth, ages 4 to 16, from their homes. Not many use computers enabled with systems (parental controls) that protect them from accessing websites with pornographic materials or talking with the numerous predators that surf the Internet looking for opportunities to interact with children.

Founder and CEO of CEN, Greg Writer, watched as the number of online-related crimes against children began to rise in the late 1990s. But he didn't sit on the sidelines and complain. With a background in investment banking, being a father of five, he created CEN and its parental controlled software for private labeling.

Most will agree, with one glance at the most recent Internet safety statistics, that this is a problem that needs a lot of attention and advanced tools offered by CEN & NCPC to keep our kids safe.

    * 79% of sexual solicitation incidents happened to youth while they were using their home computer
    * 43% of youth report that they have experienced some form of cyber-bullying in the last year. Particularly among girls, the incidence of cyber-bullying is most prevalent among 15- and 16-year-olds
    * while 27% of solicitations contained a request for the youth to send a sexual picture of themselves, 56% of solicitations contained a request for the youth to send photographs of themselves to the solicitor

Allowing parents to adjust security settings, the McGruff browser comes complete with parental controls, program animated McGruff with reminders about chores and encouraging words, and add or remove websites from the master include list with the click of the mouse. Including access to ClubTUKI (http://www.clubtuki.com ), an online portal where kids get rewarded with virtual money for playing educational games and then get to bid in an auction on real merchandise such as skateboards, movies, Xboxes, laptops, and more, the browser comes preloaded with themes, all of the best kid sites on the Internet, and a mass of educational content.