Yasni.co.uk, a provider of free people search and reputation management, recently launched a UK division of its business, enabling people to type any name into its search facility and it will scour the deep Web; immediately presenting any information about that person on the site for the user to review.The company was able to identify that parents trying to monitor their kid’s activity online is a growing trend across the globe and decided to get a better understanding of how many parents in the UK are attempting to see what their kids write about themselves online and who they are talking to. The research revealed that out of those parents who said they did monitor their child’s online activity, 56% said that they did so because they were worried that the publicly available information their children had written about themselves on social networking sites could lead to their full name, contact details and address being readily available and leaving them vulnerable to identity theft.
14% of parents track and monitor their child’s activity because they have concerns about their safety, in terms of meeting undesirable people on the Web, 13% said they monitored usage and what is being written to ensure their child was not a victim of the growing trend of cyber bullying and 11% of parents did so to check for any personal information their child had written that could give them an insight into their state of happiness or well-being. The company put forward that the increase in parental searches has come because of high profile cases of kids and teenagers being involved in forms of cyber-bullying, and the multiple suicides in South Wales.
Social networking sites and online forums have become an increasingly popular way of conversing with friends and therefore personal brand awareness has never been so important. Especially when considering that one in five HR managers are now checking the suitability of job applicants on the Web.
