The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

online games and activities, and scholarly articles or other materials with an educational focus.Major federally funded research programs on the topic of Internet safety were included becausethe recommendations they yield contribute to public awareness about the topic.Web pages with lists of Internet safety rules with no other interactive content did not meet thecriteria for inclusion in this inventory. Software packages marketed to parents, schools, andlibraries for blocking, recording, or monitoring Internet usage by youth were also outside thescope of this inventory because they are products of private commercial enterprises.1. Methodology of ReviewThe search for English-language materials was conducted both online and through documentreview. The search engines Google and Yahoo were used to scan for the term “Internet safety,”and a list of hits was compiled for review. Programs that were linked to these sites as additionalresources also were included in the equivalent of an electronic “snowball sampling” strategy. 93The home pages of federal agencies and departments were included, and the page searchfunction, if available, was used to search for the term “Internet safety.” In addition, personsworking in federal agencies were asked to describe their own departments’ efforts in this area. Inall, 18 federally funded programs were identified, 16 of which are educational programs forchildren, youth, or adults. Two are federally funded research projects that includerecommendations to prevent the online victimization of children. (See appendix 1 for adescription of all 18 federally funded programs.) Appendix 2 lists a representative (but notexhaustive) set of nonfederally funded Internet safety programs. It is not within the scope of thisinventory to discuss these programs in detail or to evaluate the programs identified.Pursuant to Pub. L. No. 108–447, this inventory was prepared in coordination with theCoordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. On January 7, 2005, J.Robert Flores, OJJDP Administrator and Vice Chair of the Coordinating Council, sent a letter toCoordinating Council members requesting, among other things, their cooperation in preparingthis report. Mr. Flores also discussed the preparation of the inventory at the meeting of theCoordinating Council on March 4, 2005. OJJDP appreciates the cooperation of Council memberagencies in providing and reviewing information incorporated in this report.a. History of Federal Involvement in Internet Safety Programs for YouthThe federal government’s first broad foray into the field of Internet safety for children wasmarked by the passage of the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA). COPA created acommission to “identify technological or other methods that will help reduce access by minorsthat is harmful to minors on the Internet.” The COPA Commission was charged with evaluating93 Snowball sampling is an approach where informants are asked to identify other persons knowledgeable about thetopic of study. When these persons are interviewed the researcher accumulates more and more information about thetopic. The chain of “recommended informants” initially diverges, but finally converges as a few key persons emergeas the most frequently mentioned names. Patton, Michael Quinn (1990). Qualitative Research & EvaluationMethods. Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA, p. 237.111