• Oz parents say no to phone ban. In spite of some incidents of phone-based bullying, parents in New South Wales, Australia, don't want schools to ban cellphones, Australian IT reports. "In a six-month period to April this year, NSW government schools filed more than 25 reports to police about serious incidents [of violence] filmed by [students using] video-equipped phones." Still, the education minister there said that "such cases were in the minority and that most parents wanted their children to carry phones with them for safety reasons." The government, he added, had no plans to impose such a ban.
• Social shopping from back-to-school retailers. To lure more young customers, retailers are trying to make online shopping a more social experience. They're creating "elaborate online worlds that may have little to do with their products [and] employing video-sharing, social networking and even virtual reality to target the teenagers who drove sites like YouTube and Facebook to popularity," the Washington Post reports. Examples: At Sears.com you can create your own avatar, or virtual self, and virtually try on Sears clothes; "Wal-Mart started a Facebook group about dorm-room style"; and J.C. Penney and American Eagle Outfitters will have new short films in their sites every week.
• Oz plan to 'clean up the Web.' One piece of Prime Minister John Howard's plan to "clean up the Web" for Australian families is to provide free filtering software for them to install on household computers, Australian IT reports. That'll help families with young children who use the Web only on those computers, not those who access the Web on gameplayers, phones, or other portable devices. "Of the $189 million [US $155 million], $43 million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the AFP [Australian Federal Police] and establish a working group to find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators (Howard has pledged to "upgrade the search for chat-room sex predators and cut off terror sites")". He made his clean-up pledge "on a Webcast to more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the country." Here's the New York Times on a US cleanup effort, ObscenityCrimes.org, run by Morality in Media.
• Florida: Teen sex offenders for life. The private records of juvenile court remain fully public in Florida, as far as young sex offenders are concerned. "A state law that went into effect July 1 will list teens as young as 14 on the same Web site as adults who are convicted pedophiles and sexual predators. The designation will follow them and their families as they enter schools, move to new communities and eventually apply for colleges, trade schools and jobs," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. This is a double blow for teens who commit minor offenses, because they don't have the benefit of being tried before juries in juvenile courts and the privacy that has been afforded juveniles for over 100 years is suddenly gone. The article cites the view of "some public defenders and legal experts" that being listed for life with adult sex offenders could hinder these teenagers' rehabilitation. "Public defenders plan to challenge the [Florida] law," the Sun-Sentinel adds. For more on this, see "Romeo's victim wasn't notified" and "Juvenile sex offenders & Net registries."

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