Central Thanh Hoa Province’s Union of
Informatics and Transfer Technology has successfully programmed software to help
parents better control their children’s access to the Internet, reports its
director Nguyen Huu Hung.

The
Manage Access Network (MAN) was designed to prevent access to web sites that do
not suit a child’s age and development, he said. The list of forbidden web sites
could be updated automatically via the union’s system or manually.

The
software included measures to check or schedule access to the Internet for a day
or a month.

MAN
would also help users monitor the duration of access to host computers and
automatically make payments.

The
union is installing the software in the province’s Quang Trung, Nguyen Van Troi,
Dien Bien, Minh Khai secondary schools and Ham Rong high school.

A union
survey shows that two-third of the students at the schools have home Internet
access, but parents have little effective control of its use.

“This
software is expected to join hands with parents to control their children’s
Internet use including access to on-line games and porn sites ” said director
Hung.

It was
planned to expand MAN to other provinces.

A 10-day
free trial version of the programme is available at www.ccn.com.vn or the
software can be bought for VND268,000 (US$13.4).

Vuong
Hien, of Ha Noi, the mother of a 15-year-old son, said that she was always
worried about what her child accessed on the Internet.

But the
new software would help her control the content her son was allowed to access as
well as the time he was on the Internet and its price was affordable.

The
Culture, Sports and Tourism Ministry’s Copyright Information Department granted
the union software copyright last month.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News