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The Chatters™ Solution
Attention Teens and Parents:
It is important for
you to know how our approach to providing chat service makes Chatters™ a safer
alternative to chatting on-line.
Please read this page before registering.
Click here to
learn why
Chatters™ is your best choice!
Chatters™
Is Your Best Choice!
Finding a safer chat service for your young teen is
hard to do. Most parents are very busy providing for their family and simply
do not have the time to constantly watch over their child's chat room
activity. That's why Chatters™ is here. If you are one of those busy parents looking for a safer chat
experience for your young teen, please read on. We think you will find Chatters™ to be the best
alternative. Here's why:
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We have been operating chat rooms since 1995. Learn
more.
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We specialize in providing chat service only. Learn
more.
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We define acceptable chat room behavior
clearly. Learn more.
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We hold our users accountable for their actions. Learn
more.
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We learn the true identity of our users. Learn more.
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We do not depend on advertising revenues. Learn
more.
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We manually review all registrations. Learn more.
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We monitor all chat room activity. Learn
More
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We use sophisticated chat server software. Learn
more.
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We have chat rooms that are lots of fun! Learn more.
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We offer a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. Learn
more.
Click
Here To Register Now!
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We have been operating chat sites since
1995. It is important you know that Chatters™ has
actually been
around for over 6 years, since March, 1997. In "Internet"
years that's a long time! Our chat service
experience includes the operation of many other chat sites since 1994,
including one for a Fortune 500 company that engaged over 25,000
chatters daily. Today, we
are a small private company with a heartfelt mission to provide a safer chat service for
young teens ages 12 to 14 years old.
Our founder and owner-operator, ChatBob,
is a mature parent who understands
the need for child safety on the web. ChatBob
has made it his mission to
find a cost effective way to provide a safer place for young teens to have fun chatting on-line. In addition to ChatBob's many
years of web development experience, ChatBob
and his wife Marie (married for 35 years) are the proud parents of two
daughters who have grown into successful young adults. We think the
maturity of a successful parent combined with seasoned Internet chat
service experience is critical to providing a safer chat environment for young teens.
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We specialize in providing chat service
only. Providing chat service is all we do. For very
important security reasons we purposely do not
offer any other interactive services at Chatters™. At Chatters you will not find us offering free
email, free instant messaging, free web pages, bulletin boards, discussion forums, or
newsgroups. We do not offer these services because we think it is
important to keep the kid's
personal contact information strictly confidential. Sadly, far too many of the
big on-line service communities do very little to block children under
the age of 13 from the many other interactive services and features they provide.
Unfortunately, many of these popular "enhanced" services actually
contribute to children's on-line vulnerability.
Predators and trouble-makers love those on-line communities that offer a
multiple of interactive services such as bulletin boards, instant
messaging and
discussion forums because they know they can easily harvest email
addresses. Predators learned long ago that bulletin boards, discussion
forums, instant messaging and newsgroups are an easy way to establish contact
and develop rapport with children because
they can hide from adult monitors.
Our belief is
that the only way to limit our young teens exposure to these tactics is to
offer chat services only. Chat is one of the most popular
on-line activities desired by young teens. Unfortunately, on-line chatting is also one of the most
dangerous activities if not closely monitored. Chatting can be made far safer if the chat rooms are
closely monitored, tightly controlled, and accessed only by a carefully screened
and select group of
users. Our Chatters™
chat room
rules specifically forbid any chat room exchanges of personally
identifiable information, including email addresses and instant
messaging (IM) contact information. Simply stated, because we offer chat service
only there is no other interactive service for our children to wander into wherein a predator
may be lurking.
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We define acceptable chat room behavior
clearly. While we think all parents should take the time to
teach their children how to behave properly in a chat room, not all do. More often than not,
problem users at most chat services are allowed to continue their
disruptive behavior without consequence. Recognizing this problem, our
solution is to act quickly and discipline firmly. We are one of the few chat services in which the
consequence of a Chat Room Rules violation
is that a child user's chat room access may be temporarily blocked until
we can correspond with a parent about the problem. We do this through
an email tool we call the "Disciplinary Action Notice." Much
like a child's school, we think it is important to have parental
involvement when necessary.
Our experience has shown that what works best
is a chat room behavior policy and guideline that is specific in
defining what is or is not acceptable and fair when disciplinary
action is necessary. We also try to make any disciplinary action a
learning experience. After all, we know that "kids will be
kids" and sometimes test the rules. On the other hand, for
certain kinds of offenses we are firm and quick to revoke chat room
access. To get a better idea as to the strength of our chat room rules
and acceptable use policies, please take a moment to read our Chatters™
Chat Room Rules and Statement
of Acceptable Use Policy (SAU Policy).
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We hold our users accountable for their actions.
Knowing with
reasonable certainty the true identity of our users is the only way we
have found to create effective accountability. Effective accountability is the keystone to our security system.
Because most criminals
and incorrigibles prowling the Internet want to evade accountability, the greatest majority of
these undesirables run from those web services for children that require positive
personal identification during the registration process. When they "know you know who they
are," they quickly move elsewhere.
At Chatters™ we have found that the most effective way to obtain
the true identity of users is through an on-line credit card transaction.
To perform that transaction, we use one of the Internet's
most reputable and secure credit card processing services available, the
Internet Billing Company (Ibill).
All credit card transactions are accomplished on Ibill's secure server and
each transaction is carefully screened for fraud. And, what if a sexual predator
hides behind someone else's credit card? Well, the good news is law
enforcement has an excellent lead from which to launch their investigation
of the fraud: the credit card transaction.
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We learn the true identity of our users.
Because we charge a nominal fee (learn why) and collect that fee through a credit
card transaction, we are able to learn from our users their personally
identifiable information. Providing this information may be scary to
some, but it is critically important if you want your child to be in a
safe chat room.
Today, most people are very cautious (and rightfully so) about giving
out personal information on the Internet. And, no matter what the motive, we
all know it is very easy to fill-out
an Internet registration form and falsify everything on it. Trouble-makers
and predators know that if they can hide behind an alias or false
identity they are free to exert their damage with little or no risk of being
caught. If a user's true identity is unknown there is no
effective way to hold the user accountable for his or her actions. This
lack of being able to hold someone accountable becomes critical when a
user is suspected of being a sexual preditor.
Don't get us wrong, there is no doubt that people
should be very careful as to whom they let know their personally
identifiable information. Especially when divulging the personally
identifiable information of children. We are strong
supporters of the Children's
On-line Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and work hard to protect
the privacy of any personally identifiable information you provide us. When it comes to protecting child users, our need
for personally identifiable information is no less important than the
need of a school, summer camp, or athletic club. Before you register,
please be sure to read our Kid Chatters™
Privacy Policy so you can learn more about what personally
identifiable information we collect and, most importantly, how we
handle that personally identifiable information.
To be clear: If
you truly want a safe and secure chat site for your children, then it is in
your child's best interest that we know with reasonable certainty the
true identity of all of our chat service participants and their
responsible parent(s). Please read our Privacy
Policy so you know we take these responsibilities seriously.
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We do not depend on advertising revenues.
Advertisers are often the only means of revenue for most web
sites targeting children. Many of those advertisers want to have the child
"click through" their ad to a different location and then either
gather more personal information or create a purchase. We believe this
has to change for sites targeting children, especially children under
the age of 13. We think this policy goes a long way towards protecting
the privacy of our child users.
Our policy regarding advertising at Chatters™ is simple:
We do
not run click-through ad banners on our site that will take the child user
off-site. We believe click-through ad banners that take users
off-site are one of the biggest threats to child user safety. Simply
put, there is no control on where the child user goes or what the
child user may be exposed to, including the solicitation of
personally identifiable information.
We now have a few "sponsors" instead of
"advertisers" who understand and agree with our thinking.
With time, we think you will see more and more companies come to
understand why click-through banners are a threat to a child user's
safety. If you are reading this because you are interested in becoming
a sponsor and you agree with our thinking about preserving child user
security, please feel free to contact
us for more information about Chatters™ sponsorships.
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We manually review all registrations.
At the end of the day there is no
substitute for human intervention. We look over each and every chat
room registration application. If we see something that does not look
right we will call the registrant to confirm the information provided
is accurate. You will find our
registration procedures are more complicated than those found at
"free" chat services. But, then again, our objectives are quite
different. If you get stumped or run into problems we will be there to help
you along.
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We monitor all chat room activity.
Chat room monitoring at Chatters™ is better than you will find at
most other chat sites for teens because we monitor two ways - in the
chat room "foreground" and in the chat room
"background." This unique "double monitoring"
approach at Chatters™ is why we offer a safer alternative to most
other chat sites for children.
Another very important safety factor is that unlike many other popular
chat services, our special Chatters™ chat software does not
permit "private" or "instant" messaging. Because
we have disabled these features in our chat software our adult room
monitors are able to see all messages posted between chatters.
Our experience in managing other chat sites has taught us that
"private" and "instant" messaging is a breeding
ground for trouble and much too great a security risk for
children.
In our "double monitoring" approach we have both invisible
and visible adult room monitors. "Invisible" or
"background monitors" are identified when in the chat room
by a generic user name of "checkers." "Visible" or
"foreground monitors" are identified when in the chat room
by a user name with the title of "Guardian." For example,
Guardian_Bleu or Guardian_Ron, etc.
"Background" monitoring is one of our most effective
security tools. Our adult "background monitors" are not
distracted by having to converse with chat room participants. The teens
have much more fun because they feel they are alone with
their friends and can be themselves - not much different as to how
they feel when on the playground during recess with Teachers standing
off to the side watching. At Chatters™, teens are taught that they are responsible for their own actions and must follow
the chat room rules, even when there is no apparent adult supervision.
This monitoring technique has proven to be very successful at catching
unauthorized and problem users who let their guard down because they
have forgotten there are adults in the background
monitoring the chat room.
"Foreground" monitoring is another very effective tool. Our
adult "foreground monitors" are able to help the teens with
their application questions and keep the chat room lively and fun.
Know by the teens as "Guardians," they usually are in the
chat rooms during the most active time periods. They are there to
answer questions and maintain a pleasant chat room environment. If
they are not in the room and you have a quest, you or your child can
always reach a Chatters™
Guardian by email to guardians@chatters.com
One Final Note About Room Monitoring:
As much as we
would like to, we cannot offer 100% assurance there will be no
instances of offensive language or offensive behavior. Because we do not
pre-screen messages (censor) or pre-approve messages before they are posted in the chat room, we have no way of controlling everything that any one user types onto their keyboard.
Kids will be kids and sometimes are very creative as to how to evade
our "word filter" software. Consequently, some users will on occasion
succeed in posting messages or conducting behavior in violation of our chat
room rules. What we at Chatters™ do assure you of is that our staff will take
appropriate disciplinary action quickly and firmly. At Chatters™, chat
room safety will always be the most important consideration in forming our
policies and daily priorities.
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We use the most sophisticated and secure
chat server software available. You will find that your
teens will
love our chat rooms. The teens are able to enjoy the use of our two
most popular chat rooms, Banana Split and Hot Fudge. Best of all they
get to use emoticons and sounds that have been especially designed to make
their chat experience a lot of fun. And, because we do not permit the
uploading of custom images, icons, or avatars, there is no risk that any inappropriate image can be posted in
the chat room. Because we do not want our teens exposed to possibly
dangerous transient traffic, we do not allow guest chatters to view
our chat rooms prior to completing a full registration at Chatters™.
We know this may be inconvenient for some, but we hope you can
appreciate the security risk associated with transient traffic. The
technical requirements for our chat service include:
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At least 24 Megs RAM
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Java enabled web browser.
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4.0 + version of either Netscape or Internet Explorer web
browsers.
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AOL web browser is not compatible. However, AOL users can access
our chat service if they use a stand-a-lone version of Netscape or
Explorer when they use our chat service
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WebTV web browser not compatible.
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Most important: The
Teens have fun in our chat
rooms! Important as all of the security policies and systems are, the real test
is what the kids think of our chat rooms. After all, we want the kids to
have a great time and lots of fun while they are chatting in a cleaner and
safer environment. We know from experience that your kids will love our
Orbitz and Starz chat rooms. To get a peek at what our chat rooms look
like, click here.
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Why
Pay For My Child To Chat?
We understand the idea of paying for your
teens to chat on-line cuts across the grain of
most popular thinking. After all, there are plenty of
"
free" chat services out there for teens. However, if you are a parent
who has looked over your kid's shoulders while they are in any of these "free" chat rooms you already know that clean, safe chat rooms
are hard to find on today's Internet. There's good reason for that. It
cost money to maintain a safer chat site for teens which requires close
monitoring. Remember, at Chatters™
we specialize in providing a safer chat service for your kids. This is
all we do! To be sure, we do not promote product sales, web pages, email
services, or any other revenue generating services to our kids and,
most importantly, we do not push outside advertising on the teens to supplement
revenue.
As many parents are learning, when it comes to safety
on the net you get what you pay for!
Even with the best efforts of
the FTC
and COPPA, it seems there is not a week
that goes by without another horrifying story about on-line chat
room predators. If you are truly interested in providing your child a
cleaner and safer chat room experience, then we think you will see the
value of Chatters™.
The cost for this service is a nominal monthly service fee of
$3.95.
To put things into perspective, the Chatters™ monthly service fee is
about the
cost of one McDonald's™ Happy Meal™ or 10˘ each day your child
chats. And, if you have more than one child, you can register up to
five teens in the same household. We think you will find that our nominal
service fee is a small price to pay for a big peace of mind.
Our 30-Day Money-Back Offer:
Because we know you probably would like to carefully evaluate our chat
service, we offer a 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee. If at any time during
the first thirty days you
are not satisfied with the Chatters™ service, you can get the $3.95 registration fee refunded. This
means you get to use and evaluate our Chatters™ service
risk-free!
And Remember: Because we know "kids will be kids" and
may lose interest in chatting on-line, there are no subscription contracts
or agreements to sign. You can cancel your membership at any time.
We hope you take advantage of this great offer. We are confident you
and your teens will like what we are doing to make chat rooms safer.
If
you are ready to put your teens in
a safer chat
service,
Click
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