The Internet
As computers and the internet have become part of most of our daily lives, crimes of sexual harassment and stalking have moved on-line. It has been estimated that at least once in their life, one in every twenty women will be stalked online. Further evidence has been brought that shows that the victims will most likely be females attacked by men. Stalkers can use the internet at ease as they can there are many free chat services on the net where you can log on anonymously and have the ability to talk to anyone in the world about anything you want! Also, directory sites, like the Yellow Pages or Canada411, will give out the personal information of anyone to who ever requests it. That means that a stalker can easily obtain the phone number, address and even the e-mail address of their intended victim without anyone knowing. The problem with sites like these is that most people do not know they exist and that their personal information is being shared with the whole world. There is some optimism in the fact that you can easily get yourself unlisted.
Although cyberstalking is relatively new, its frequency is growing. In a survey, prepared in 1997, of college in America, thirteen percent of females said they were stalked. Surprisingly, twenty-five percent of those reported being stalked said that their stalker had been stalking them on-line. In 1998, The Web Police, an international on-line crime fighting agency, estimated that about 14,000+ complaints it received involved harassment or threatening e-mail. As a result of these complaints, seventeen of the United States have strict laws against harassment and stalking on-line.
Help arrived from the Clinton administration, when they called for tougher laws against on-line stalkers and encourages Internet companies to launch websites to bring about awareness on the topic of cyberstalking. CYBERsitter, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, SurfWatch, Cyber Snoop and Eyeguard are all internet “babysitting” programs. When these programs detect the use of pornography or common objectionable phrases, they will block the website you attempting to connect to, and store the details of it in a password-protected file so the "owner" of the computer can read what happened. These internet babysitting programs also monitor chat and instant messaging software. Some major corporations have been implementing strong parental control features in their internet browser software, such as American Online (AOL) and Microsoft Networks (MSN).
Although cyberstalking is relatively new, its frequency is growing. In a survey, prepared in 1997, of college in America, thirteen percent of females said they were stalked. Surprisingly, twenty-five percent of those reported being stalked said that their stalker had been stalking them on-line. In 1998, The Web Police, an international on-line crime fighting agency, estimated that about 14,000+ complaints it received involved harassment or threatening e-mail. As a result of these complaints, seventeen of the United States have strict laws against harassment and stalking on-line.
Help arrived from the Clinton administration, when they called for tougher laws against on-line stalkers and encourages Internet companies to launch websites to bring about awareness on the topic of cyberstalking. CYBERsitter, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, SurfWatch, Cyber Snoop and Eyeguard are all internet “babysitting” programs. When these programs detect the use of pornography or common objectionable phrases, they will block the website you attempting to connect to, and store the details of it in a password-protected file so the "owner" of the computer can read what happened. These internet babysitting programs also monitor chat and instant messaging software. Some major corporations have been implementing strong parental control features in their internet browser software, such as American Online (AOL) and Microsoft Networks (MSN).