« Company-Specific Online Safety Initiatives
Cox Communications
With Cox Communications, you don’t have to leave your home to access the world of entertainment and information online. But not every web site is right for every family member. That’s why Cox created the Take Charge! initiative, which helps parents create safe boundaries around their children’s massmedia experience. Highlights and initiatives of Take Charge! include:
Free Parental Control Software
Cox offers free parental control software to all of its high-speed Internet customers. This software allows parents to block web sites, get daily reports of where their child has been online, set time limits, customize settings for various children in the household and more.
Dedicated Internet Safety Web Site for Parents and Kids Cox created the dynamic Take Charge! web site (www.cox.com/takecharge), which includes dozens of useful, free tools to ensure safer, productive use of the Internet.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Partnership
Through a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Cox helps parents and caregivers understand how to use parental control software and encourage teens to make smarter choices online. John Walsh, children’s advocate and host of America’s Most Wanted (FOX), serves as spokesperson for Cox’s Take Charge initiative. This partnership encompasses a wide scope of safety education efforts, from funding research studies, producing and airing PSA’s and holding special events.
Public Service Announcements
Cox produces public service announcements with Take Charge spokesperson and children’s advocate, John Walsh. Since 2004, the company has provided more that $25 million in donated advertising time to reach parents and teens with messages to promote safer surfing.
Cox’s Teen Summit on Internet Safety
In observance of National Internet Safety Month, Cox convened a Teen Summit of high school students and their parents from Cox Communications communities across the country to address the ways—good and bad—that teens use the Internet. The program explored issues including teens’ use of popular social networking sites, as well as ways to improve communication between parents and children to encourage safer use of the Internet.
Cox Funds Research about Teens’ Internet Usage
In partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Cox funds and conducts research to gauge teens’ behavior online and to determine the best ways parents can have an impact on that behavior. The survey results drive the topics covered at the Cox Teen Summit, and also generates the tips publicized to teens and parents on how to stay safe online.
Internet Safety Education through Outreach and Events
Cox has conducted satellite media tours to discuss parental controls and Internet safety with Take Charge spokesperson John Walsh. Additionally, the company has conducted more than 100 local community workshops to teach parental controls and students how to be safer online. Cox has also produced and aired three national public affairs shows about Internet safety that have aired in Cox markets.
Free Instructional Guides, Brochures and Bill Inserts
Cox has also distributed more than 500,000 parent guides on Take Charge and parental control software through its customer service centers, community workshops, mailings and new customer packets. And more than 20,000 electronic guides have been downloaded from the Take Charge web site.
Internet Child Safety Task Force
The Internet Child Safety Task Force is a cross-functional group of Cox employees that meets monthly to discuss Internet safety issues and makes proactive recommendations to Cox management to ensure policies and procedures are in place to aide law enforcement and promote Internet safety among customers.
Cox Contact: Mallard Holliday404.843.5981
