|
Common problems
Think before you publish online. Consider the kind of potential
hazards explained below and decide how to make your webpages special
while minimising the risks.
Personal information might be misused by other people who read
the details on your webpages, so think hard about what information
you want to make public on the web and what information you want
to keep private. For example, if you give name and address and say
on your pages how much you are looking forward to your holidays
in August, you just may attract burglars! Publishing your phone
and fax numbers may result in crank and sales calls. Be cautious
as well with financial and employment information, as you don't
want criminals attempting to obtain loans, credit cards or purchases
in your name.
Photographs with names liven up your personal webpages, but there
are risks here. Identifying your family members and their activities
(e.g. the school they attend) makes it easier for someone to attempt
to meet them, and greet them by name. There is also the chance that
someone will copy the photo and then use image-manipulation software
to create a very different and offensive picture. So consider not
identifying family members in captions and not using close-up photos.
Email addresses are a standard feature of personal webpages, as
they encourage web visitors to get in touch with you and share their
comments. Some adults will prefer to check all incoming email in
case an unsuitable comment is made or a strange person tries to
contact your child. Be aware also that having your email address
on a webpage often results in you receiving junk emails (known as
"spam", and which are often pornographic), because some
people use special software to trawl through webpages and collect
email addresses which they then sell to advertisers.
Similarly, having a "Guestbook" feature on your website
where visitors write comments, can attract unpleasant remarks and
you may want to check it regularly and clean it out if necessary.
Text that you write for your webpages is another area for care.
Libel laws still apply to webpages, and you must not write and publish
things about people or organisations that you know to be untrue
or which damage their reputation unfairly. If you discover a webpage
that treats you like that, you should complain first to the person
who created the pages (if they are named with contact details on
the site), or to the company on whose webserver the pages are "hosted"
as they can block access to those pages.
Copyright is an issue for any webpage creator, and many people
make use of images and other files that they do not have the right
to publish online. You should always ask for permission (which may
be refused) to use any files that were created and owned by other
people or companies, including photos, graphics, animations, audio
and video clips, etc. Files taken from one medium to another, such
as images grabbed from TV shows or scanned in from magazines, are
a particular problem. Legal action can be taken against you if you
ignore the rights of copyright owners and publish their material
without permission.
The Security of your webpages should concern you, as you wouldn't
want someone else (known as computer hackers) altering your pages,
changing what you said or adding obscene pictures or web links.
One basic measure to protect yourself against hackers is to keep
private the User ID and password for your personal space on whichever
webserver hosts your pages. If the content of your pages is altered
by someone else, contact the provider of the webspace that you use
and ask them to check out the problem.
Schools are usually cautious and would have a staff member check
any pages produced by pupils as part of a school project or website
before the pages are allowed to go online. This is a precaution
to ensure that the youngster doesn't give away personal data and
that the webpage doesn't lead to any legal problem for the school
(such as unauthorised use of copyrighted images owned by someone
else).
At home it would be a good idea to agree a similar check with your
children, that they let you see any webpage they create before they
publish it. It gives you a chance to be sure that you are content
with what they are saying and showing about themselves and their
interests.
|
