UK social-networking heads-up

A report about social-networking risks in the UK's version of Consumer Reports didn't have any surprising revelations for parents, but it carried weight because it came from Britain's "consumer bible," as Out-Law.com put it. What the report (in Computing Which? magazine) called for, among other things, is that the social networks create a "joint code of practice regulating their treatment of children." The UK may indeed lead the charge in the industry self-regulatory move, but the US probably won't be far behind, if only because the UK's top four social networks, MySpace, Piczo, YouTube, and Bebo, are all California-based. One of the Which? researchers, Kim Gilmour, told Out-Law (UK e-commerce and IT legal news), that "while the research found some shocking material that might alarm parents … the best way they could deal with the situation was by trying to understand their children and talk to them." She added that parents should think back to when they were a teenager and realise that this is the type of discussion they were having 20 years ago, it's just that now it's actually out on the Internet if they make their profiles readable by everyone." Here's the BBC's coverage.