« Company-Specific Online Safety Initiatives

Comcast

Children’s Online Safety is A Top Priority For Comcast

Comcast, with 11.5 million broadband customers, takes a strong leadership role in protecting our customers from online risks, a demanding, ongoing process that is constantly changing as new challenges and new avenues for abuse emerge. As parents ourselves, we know that while parental involvement is critical to ensuring a safe online experience for our children, we cannot always be there when our kids, especially our teens, are online. We believe that shared responsibility works best to protect children from exploitation by online predators.

Comcast believes that parental controls and customer awareness and education are essential to combating child online exploitation. Comcast provides superior technology to help secure our network and protect our customers. We provide proven tools from trusted sources to empower and educate our customers so that they can explore the Internet in safe and secure manner.

For customers to embrace and use security tools, convenience and ease of use is key. In partnership with McAfee®, Comcast offers a full suite of security tools at no additional cost to our customers — VirusScan, Personal Firewall Plus and Privacy Service — that are easy to download and simple to use. McAfee’s Privacy Service includes parental controls that block Web sites according to age-based access levels, filter Web sites for adult images, monitor chat sessions and limit their child’s online activity to pre-set hours. In addition, Comcast’s parental controls allow parents to view logs of Web sites that were filtered and blocked by McAfee and can block certain types of personal information from being transmitted over the Internet. Comcast’s specialized customer care agents are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer questions related to Comcast’s security products.

Security tools are conveniently located and available to download in the Security Channel of Comcast.net, the Comcast High-Speed Internet portal and the new Comcast Toolbar. The Comcast Toolbar also includes Spyware Scan, a pop-up blocker powered by Pest Patrol (Computer Associates) to help block inappropriate content from children’s view and TrustWatch, an anti-phishing service from GeoTrust.

In the Security Channel, we encourage parents to get involved in their children’s online activities. Comcast provides content-rich tips and guidelines to help parents take an active role in their child’s online safety. On Comcast.net, parents can access information from trusted experts like GetNetWise, NetSmartz, WiredKids, and the FTC. In addition, parents can find the latest information on cyber-bullying, social networking and keeping personal information private.

To combat the potential for child exploitation and other online dangers, Comcast actively participates in a number of organizations and work groups to evaluate current industry standards and to help craft new best practices in online consumer safety for all Internet users of all ages, but especially the youngest ones.

Comcast Contact: Kim Scardino
Senior Director, External Affairs and Public Policy
kim_scardino@comcast.com
202.379.7125