Verizon lets you track your child and then some
It appears T-Mobile has started a trend. On Monday Verizon Wireless announced a new parental controls program for family plans. Usage Controls will allow parents to limit how phones on the family plan are being used. Features include controlling when calls can be made and how many minutes can be used; setting limits for text and multimedia messaging, instant messaging and data use; blocking numbers and creating a list of trusted numbers; and employing content filters. The service is available on all Verizon phones for a fee of $4.99 per month.
The carrier also has added to its Chaperone child locator service. The new Chaperone 2.0 will allow parents to track multiple phone at once and it even will give turn-by-turn directions to a child's location using VZ Navigator. Convenient, sure, but also a bit creepy. Chaperone 2.0 will cost an additional $9.99 per month for each family plan.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent. 
Where?
With whom?
When?
What?
Have your phone? ;p
See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078811 for information on what is out to get kids (no link to my site...).
Your parents called the parents of the kid you were going over to see or were going out with that evening. While our parents couldn't "follow" us around with technology, I didn't really worry about being carted off either. Times change, and this "creeping" is just another way to track kids and their communications.
When you went out, you had to answer those questions (Who, What, Where, ...). Parents talked to each other, and that was "creeping." So while it is more "direct," I don't know how "different" this is from previous way of monitoring the activity of kids.
Nobody is "entitled" to a cellphone or a date (for that matter). Consider the "creeping" terms of a License of use that you have with your children. Or, you could not protect them at all.
Which is worse?
I can't answer that for you, and I don't know that there is a "single" answer. One answer could be "right" for one person and "wrong" for another.
What nobody will argue against is that there will be people taking sides...
- by antonowicz69 August 20, 2008 3:45 PM PDT
- there was a typo
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(3 Comments)Features include controlling when calls came be made and how many minutes can be used
i think that it should be when calls can be made not came be made