• Alleged illegal plans in virtual world. It's probably a one-in-a-million case, but it does represent a risk to youth in virtual worlds and other online game settings where people of all ages play. A 31-year-old Australian woman faces child abduction charges in North Carolina "after trying to bring her 17-year-old World of Warcraft boyfriend back to Oz," TheRegister.com reports. She was arrested as she stepped off a train in Rocky Mount, N.C. She "allegedly had an online relationship with the boy for more than a year, which began in the online game World of Warcraft," and had since "exchanged copious amounts of email and even discussed marriage." She's being detained pending a July 11 court date and could face two years in American jail. Online games and social networking on cellphones are the next frontiers for child online safety.
• Monitoring kid phone use. Fifteen-year-old Joshua has a fairly pricey Blackberry Pearl. Why? Because it runs Radar kid-monitoring software, CNET reports. "Initially, the Radar software, which costs about $10 a month on top of a wireless plan, has worked only with BlackBerry devices and other smart phones, a factor that has limited growth." But its makers have struck deals with Verizon Wireless and Motorola that will make it available on more phones. As for Josh, anytime he "gets a call from someone not on a call list approved by his parents, they receive a real-time text alert on their cell phone or online," according to CNET. Now if the software can just monitor kids' photo- and video-sharing activities. (See the reference to "happy slapping" attacks in the BBC, whereby "assaults on children and adults are recorded on mobile phones and sent via video messaging" and examples in "We're all on candid camera," which ran in the Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, and BBC.)
• Social networkers, future businesspeople. I know I'm telling you nothing you don't know: Users of Facebook and MySpace will grow up to have careers. But what I really mean by that headline is that their social networking now is very likely preparing them for those careers, at the very least in the business world. John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, "the world's biggest maker of data networking equipment," told the Financial Times that "social networks, collaborative Web sites like wikis, teleconferencing and other technologies that allow interaction on a large scale" are "set to usher in a new phase of productivity growth that could surpass that achieved during the late-1990s Internet boom." In an interview with the FT, he referred to a new phase of creativity as well as productivity - that will last a minimum of 10 but probably 15 years - enabled by many-to-many communication of photos and video as well as messages.
• Wrong kind of spin control. The term is "sock-puppeting," and its definition is "the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one's self, allies or company," the New York Times reports. The CEO of the Whole Foods grocery chain engaged in sock-puppeting for eight years on Yahoo discussion boards. The Federal Trade Commission noticed and called him on it, and the case illustrates - for everyone, from cyberbullies to politicians to corporate executives - that online anonymity "is an illusion." And Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's actions could potentially destroy his company's bid to acquire another grocery chain, Wild Oats. The Times cites one business analyst as saying CEO sock-puppeting is "the tip of the iceberg." It's a good case study for cybercitizenship lessons in homes and schools, looking at the difference between ethical and unethical spin control.

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