Parents of seven-year-old Mehul Chowdhury were a worried lot after they found out that a paedophile stalker, who had befriended him on Facebook, was abusing their only child.
Like what many other parents would do, they banned Mehul from accessing the Internet resulting in angry outbursts from the Class three student, up until his chartered accountant father found a new fun, educative social networking website, which promised online safety and privacy for children.
Ever since Worldoo.Com was launched in April, more than 20,000 children have already signed in for the first of its kind online ecosystem designed specifically for Indian children, in the age group of 6-12.
Harsh Wardhan Dave, Head (Experience and Brand) of worldoo.Com, says with an increase in the number of cases of child stalking and abuse they have put in multi-level security checks on their website.
Besides having moderators who round the clock monitor chats and children's activities, the website prevents uploading of pictures and personal information on their profiles or via any other activity.
"This is to prevent any form of personal information like telephone numbers and addresses to be shared and to ensure that the child's privacy is protected," Dave explains.
Children often fake their age in order to access sites like Facebook or Google's Orkut. The two companies have already been asked by the Delhi High Court to spell out their mechanism to deal with complaints including misuse of social networking sites by children below 13 years of age.
