WIRED ON FRIDAY: Website aims to give protection for children using the internet but younger age groups will still be exposed to online dangers

Parents, I'm sure, are aware of the challenges facing them in trying to monitor what their children do outside the home, let alone what they see on the internet.

As websites proliferate, the amount of undesirable information on the Web grows and there is no way to safeguard whether an adult or a child is viewing inappropriate material.

According to government data, half of the people living in the United States - 140 million - are now online. Ninety per cent of children in America between the ages of five and 17 use computers and 65 per cent of 10- to 13-year-olds use the internet.

Use of computers is growing fast among younger age groups. For example, according to "A Nation Online: How Americans are expanding their use of the internet" published in February last year by the US Department of Commerce, 84 per cent of five- to nine-year -olds use computers at home, school or both.

Because of the widespread use of the internet by children in all aspects of their lives, the US government is designing a domain just for children. Called kids.us it would be a new, second level internet domain within the United States country code of dot-us.

Since the US government has reserved the address kids.us, it can assign any number of names within that address. The objective of the kids.us domain is to facilitate the establishment of a friendly and enjoyable environment for children using the internet.

Last month on December 4th, President Bush signed into law the Dot-Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act that creates a dot kids domain within America's dot-us addressing space.

"Every site designated dot-kids will be a safe zone for children," Mr Bush said during the signing ceremony.

"We must give our nation's children every opportunity to grow in knowledge without undermining their character We must give parents the peace of mind knowing their children are learning in safety."

Senator Byron Dorgan, who co-sponsored the Bill in the Senate, said that a dot-us domain would provide a "step forward for parents".

NeuStar Inc of Washington DC, which holds the government contract as dot-us registry administrator, is responsible for designing, building and managing the kids.us domain.

The company was awarded management of the dot-us domain in October 2001 and it took over dot-us on April 24th, 2002. US senators and house members pushed to get a kids-specific site under way.

Ms Barbara Blackwell, spokesperson for NeuStar, said the company would guarantee that content on the kids.us site "will be appropriate for children under 13." At the moment, NeuStar is talking to content providers, like Sesame Street, about designing content for the site.

"We anticipate the site will be up and running by mid-2003," she said. Then the company will initiate a marketing campaign aimed at schools, law enforcement and child advocacy groups.

Ms Blackwell said she was not aware of any other country designating a site specifically for children and in that regard expects the US government to be a trendsetter.

A recently published report called Youth, Pornography and the Internet, published by the US National Academies of Sciences, concluded that there was no single approach that would on its own protect children from online dangers.

Rather, the dot-us domain is being designed as an alternative on the internet that children, parents, educators and children's content providers may elect to use.

There is also some criticism being voiced that a site dedicated to children could even encourage would-be predators to log on.

However, Ms Blackwell warns that "Kids.us will not take the place of parents. Parents will still need to watch what children access on the internet."