Principal results of INC's study of French websites for children

EU Action Plan on promoting safer use of the Internet - the CISA project

More than one third of the websites evaluated did not give, or made it difficult to find, details about whose site it was. Here also, an effort had to be made to find out who was responsible for the information published on the site.

Nearly 88% of sites did not indicate when they had updated the information or how often they did so. How reliable, then, is this information?

24% of the sites had information for the attention of parents but no more than 16% gave safer surfing recommendations to children.

More that 70% of sites collected personal information from children. In the evaluation, sites were penalised for asking children for their email address, name, address and telephone number. However only one third of sites mentioned legal information on the possible transfer of their data to third parties.

72.5% of the sites did not offer goods for sale on-line. But 15% of the sites did have an on-line shop where a child could make purchase on their own. (In the evaluation, this characteristic led to a heavy points penalty).

More than 58 % of sites presented advertisements as pop ups, hyperlinks with commercial sites, banners, animated images, etc.

About 56 % of sites did not have chatrooms, forums or message boards. Only 31% of the sites which did have forums or chatrooms filtered or moderated them. (In the evaluation, the absence of filtering or moderation was penalised.)

Only 11% of sites explicitly encouraged dialogue between parents and their children.

Note: one site was disqualified for instigating violence through a game.

Preliminary considerations:

Internet sites, even children's, are 'living' products. The evaluation of a site corresponds only to the time it was visited. Updates of sites are carried out periodically, improving them or not. Such changes could modify the results of the study held in April/May 2002.
Links with other sites are created and removed without notice. These links can radically modify the evaluation of a site at any given time (introduction of advertising, links to different types of sites or dangerous sites).

It was noted that by using links from one site to another, a child could reach sites of a completely different nature to the one he/she started from. Indeed, the use of links to create a World Wide Web is the essence of the Internet.

In the analysis of the sites, account was not made of the "plus/minus " value of the creation of a wider network. The time and the means assigned to this study allowed for only for one evaluation, carried out on different dates, to be made on each site in line with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th rows.
The use of pop up windows, superimposed on webpages, is occurring more frequently. And they are not constant or permanent. Thus, the configuration of the site can be modified constantly. These pop up windows usually carry advertising and provide links with new sites (see above).

Comprehensive analysis of the results, question by question

Number of sites evaluated: 81

Questions	Results	Comments
Q.3 : identification of the web site owner : easy, difficult. none	86.75% of the sites gave an address 13.25% of the sites did not give details.	Given the lack of identification by name, address etc. it was considered that display of an email address, a very common practice, allowed contact with the organisation/company and therefore allowed users to identify it.
Q.4 : Are the details of the site owner on the site?	20.49% of the sites did not give details about the owner of the site
Q.5 : Does the site tell you when it was last updated and how often it is updated?	11.25% of the sites displayed this information	This information may be significant when considering the creation of links with other sites.
Q.6 : Message or information for the attention of parents	23.75% of the sites displayed this type of message	The sites which displayed this type of message are usually personal sites or those of institutions (less frequently commercial sites).
Q.7 : Information/recommendations for children about the safe use of the Internet	16.25%of the sites displayed this message
Q.8 à 13 :		Questions 8 to 13 are rather subjective and the answers were analysed by adults, albeit some of them young people and trained to work with children. They were unable to evaluate the sites with these questions and therefore could not classify the sites only check them. The criteria were classified as good, average and insufficient.
Q.14	28.75% of the sites analysed do not collect personal data. The remaining two thirds collected data; sometimes only an email is required, but it is an "umbilical cord" which can make it possible to contact the child again. The study penalised this practice by removing 30 points (-30). The criteria were classified as good, average and insufficient.	This question made it possible to make a significant distinction between the sites. If the site collects personal data, one must analyse the detail of the type of data collected. It seemed more critical to ask name, address and telephone number of a child than only his/her place of residence. Negative points were allotted to this question. See details in appendix
Q.15 : Mention of legal information relative to data processing law and human rights and a warning relating to the transfer of the data to third parties	32.5%of the sites mentioned legal warnings on the possible transfer of their data to third parties. 11.25%of the sites gave legal information only. 1 site gave information about the transfer of data to third parties without mentioning data processing law and human rights.	A supposition can be made that the owners of web sites which provided such information were encouraged to do so by their ISP.
Q.16 : on-line shops	72.5%of the sites did not sell goods or services on-line. 15% of the sites had an on-line shop where a child could make a purchase on his/her own.	A site did not get points if it had an on-line shop or links to a commercial site. it was penalised if a child could make a purchase on-line and the site did not mention that it needed the consent or help of the parents.
Q.17 : Advertising on the site	Only 41.25% of the sites did not carry advertising (at the time of the study).	Advertising takes a very varied form: banners and scroll messages, flashing or not, links to commercial sites, pop up windows etc..
Q.18 :Forums, message boards, chat rooms moderated or filtered	56.25 % of the sites did not have forums, message boards or chat rooms. 31.25%had moderated or filtered forums.	The absence of moderation and filtering was penalised.
Q.19 : Incentives to racial hatred, violence, prostitution, paedophilia, pornography, drugs, suicide	1 site amongst 80 incited violence through a game. It was disqualified.	The capacity of the study is limited to the time it was made and that problems can arise through hyperlinks, which are coincidental and unchecked. Can anything be done about this? Nothing is better than prevention. Evaluation of this question forsees disqualification of a site. It is classed at zero if a such incentives are detected.
Q. 20 : Offer of information relevant to the schools' programme - free or for a fee	5% of the sites offered scholastic information free 1 site offered it for a fee	If such information is offered, is it only a secondary purpose? One of the criteria of selection was the leisure or entertainment character of the site not its scholastic or educational value. This criterion does not allow it to be evaluated as a whole only its different parts: recreational - scholastic - and which could go as far as a service which must be paid for.
Q. 21 : Does the site particularly encourage conversation between parents and children?	11.25%of the sites did this.	Points were attributed when the site explicitly encouraged a child to talk with his/her parents.