Instant Messaging

I recently caught my 14 year old daughter chatting on line with someone
who was using inappropriate language, and when I asked who the boy was,
she replied "a friend". I wanted to respect her privacy, but was
concerned about who she was talking to, so I searched the Internet for
IM monitoring programs and found one at www.chatchecker.com

It was a free download, and seems to monitor her IM, and I wanted to
ask if anyone has tried it, and get your opinion, or have information
about similar software.

Concerned Parent

wrote:
I recently caught my 14 year old daughter chatting on line with someone
who was using inappropriate language, and when I asked who the boy was,
she replied "a friend". I wanted to respect her privacy, but was
concerned about who she was talking to, so I searched the Internet for
IM monitoring programs and found one at www.chatchecker.com

It was a free download, and seems to monitor her IM, and I wanted to
ask if anyone has tried it, and get your opinion, or have information
about similar software.

Concerned Parent

I know how you are feeling Omega, I also have a teenage daughter in
what is now becoming the "MySpace.com" age. I work for a school
district as their network specialist and I have been told by the school
district to block publich IMing and blogs like myspace.com. The issue
of blocking these sites was an acutal school board/public community
meeting which 85% of the community parents felt that we should begin
blocking such sites. I understand what people are saying about
censorship, as a technology person I myself would be out of a job
without technology, but at the same time I feel that when it comes to
my daughter there is no such thing as to much "Parental Control". I
have seen, read and monitored some of the worst messages (emails, IMs,
blogs) by our teens. Some kids think it is funny to get some perverd
sending them messages and them replying just for fun, or actually
making dates because the other person on the other end is saying to be
a teenager just like them just wanting to "hand out" or "just meet and
talk". Who knows who is on the other end of that conversation. I am
no expert but I would just say, use your better judgement, take
precaution of who your daughter is chatting with, and remember - cyber
space is not bad, its the people who are in it that make it bad. Wish
you luck and God be with your and your family.