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Originally Posted by rhetorical
But how do you protect your kids from porn spam?
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It depends on the age of the child.
Also, knowledge of the child.
Very young children don't need separate email accounts. They can email grandma and grandpa through their parents accounts, which the parents can monitor. They can email their friends the same way. Kids start chatting on AIM very young, as soon as they can type. They have to be taught how to use it.
After that, you teach the child how to use the spam filters on email, how to set up the account as safely as you can, instruct them never to open an email coming from an address or name that isn't on their "approved list" (i.e. friends or relatives), never open anything with an attachment...basically, you teach the kid the way to use a computer. You also create an atmosphere where if the kid sees something like porn spam, you're there to discuss it with him/her. Make the kid feel like - no matter what it is - he/she can *always* come and talk to you about it. There's a lot of trust involved, but frankly, if you haven't built up that kind of trust with the child, there are a lot more problems in the family than porn spam. You also let the kid know that using the computer is a privilege, not a "right."
If a parent is totally worried about the email, the parent should be with the kid every time the email is opened and go through and delete the spam for the kid.
Lots of work, yes. But if you don't want to do the work...don't have the kid in the first place.
You can't protect your child from everything. You can just do the best that you can.
I sent my kids to school, which means they were exposed to every germ going around. I would have preferred giving that chicken pox epidemic a miss, but that's the way it goes. There's no plastic bubble to stick a kid in and keep them totally safe from everything.