NetSTAR

TOKYO November 25, 2009

　NetSTAR Inc. (Head Office: Shibuya, Tokyo; CEO: Noboru Ogawara; henceforth referred to as “NetSTAR”) is a company that develops and provides URL filtering products and services, and compiles, categorizes and distributes lists of potentially harmful URLs. Here are the results of NetSTAR’s tenth Survey of Internet Use in the Home.

　In order to gain an understanding of home Internet usage trends and user awareness, NetSTAR has been continuously surveying both parents and children since 2004. Our latest investigation was carried out in the form of an online survey for parents with mid-elementary to high-school-aged children, and received a total of 824 responses. This report will focus on the following three points in particular:

(1) Over 40% of parents consider sex-related crimes to be the most serious problem that children face online, far more than the next highest, cyber bullying, at 22%.
　Parents consider sex-related crimes to be the most serious problem that children face online, at 40.4%, far more than the next highest, cyber bullying, at 21.7%. However, only 14.8% of parents were aware that—as crime statistics have shown—there has been an increase in sex-related crimes via websites that are not dating sites.

(2) Over 70% of parents consider filtering effective in protecting children, and there are high expectations for risk assessment of individual websites by filtering.
　73.9% of parents approved of filtering for protecting children, 53% approved of Internet safety classes, 47.7% approved of parental monitoring of website content, and 46.7% approved of site operators strengthening their efforts. However, only 17.5% of parents personally monitored social networking sites. On the other hand, as many as 77.1% of parents said that they would use risk assessment if filtering services provided this for individual social networking sites.

(3) Expectations of site operators include blocking ads for, and links to, adult or dating sites, and verifying users’ identities.
　In addition to 62.4% of parents wishing for site operators to block ads for, and links to, adult and dating sites, in order to decrease the number of solicitations and sex-related crimes on social networking sites, 56.2% wish for site operators to verify the identities of all users, in order to prevent children from lying about information such as their ages, and 52.7% wish for there to be no user search function, in order to decrease the number of solicitations.

　A committee for the promotion of Internet safety compiled a report this October on problems arising for children online as a result of social networking sites. This report also points out the importance of functions that stop adults with malicious intent from being able to contact young people. NetSTAR has developed a service providing risk assessment for individual social networking sites whose URLs are on its filtering lists which are designed especially for home use, and has been providing this service since August.
　NetSTAR is working to gain an understanding of user trends and awareness, and reflecting the results in the development of its technology and products, in order to make a contribution to society by providing a safe, worry-free environment for all Internet users.

■Background to the survey
　The environment in which children use the Internet has presented new problems, such as the occurrence of crimes relating to participatory websites. This investigation targeted parents with third- or fourth-grade to high school-aged children, and its purpose was to gain an understanding of awareness of these issues and to help provide ways to resolve these issues.

■Survey methods
　NetSTAR carried out this survey online on 25 and 26 September 2009, with the help of online research company Macromill. The survey targeted parents with third- or fourth-grade to high school-aged children. The survey was divided into categories based on the children’s age (3rd-4th grade, 5th-6th grade, junior high school and high school) and gender, each category accounting for 12.5% of respondents. 0.6% of parents were in their 20s, 33.3% were in their 30s, 59.1% were in their 40s, 6.7% were in their 50s and 0.4% were in their 60s. There were 824 valid responses.

■Results and comments on the main points(Graphs in Japanese only)

▼Sex-related crimes against children online: Parents “do not consider it close to home but are concerned.”
-80.5% of parents have heard of cyber bullying or online fights, followed by sex-related crimes at 78.2%, followed by slanderous posts and phishing (see Graph 1)
-The issues that the most parents considered to be close to home were cyber bullying at 20.1%, slanderous posts at 17.8%, and addiction at 15.3%. Cyber bullying stands out among parents of mid-elementary (3rd- and 4th-grade) aged children, slanderous posts among parents of junior-high-school-aged children, and phishing among parents of high-school-aged children. Many parents of boys felt that phishing was an issue close to home, while many parents of girls considered cyber bullying and sex-related crimes to be an issue close to home (see Graphs 2, Graphs 3. Graphs 4.)
-When asked which problem they strongly wanted to avoid, 40.4% of parents said sex-related crimes—18% more than cyber bullying at 21.7%. This trend was particularly apparent in the parents of girls, while cyber bullying rated higher among the parents of boys (see Graphs 5 and Graphs 6)
-When asked on which types of site children encountered problems, 72.8% said private message boards for students of particular schools, and 72.5% said dating sites. Awareness of the recent change in the crime statistics was lacking. 85.2% of all respondents said that they had not been aware that the police had reported an increase in crime on non-dating sites. Respondents who were unaware of this also tended to be unaware of the risks of social networking sites and vice versa (see Graphs 7, Graphs 8. Graphs 9.)
-When asked why children fell victim to crime on non-dating sites, 80% said it was due to a lack of caution and discretion on the part of the child, and 75.6% said it was due to the actions of adults with malicious intent (see Graph 10)

▼Over 80% of parents try to protect their children by banning them from using social networking sites, but only 40% are confident that they can judge how dangerous individual sites are.
-84.6% of parents say that they want to try to protect their children from crime occurring on non-dating sites by banning them from using social networking sites (see Graph 11)
-68% of parents said that they were actually able to stop their child from using social networking sites. There was no major difference between wanting to and being able to among the parents of elementary and junior-high-school students, but a higher proportion of parents of high-school students said that they felt that it was difficult to stop their child from using these sites. The proportion of parents who felt that they could not stop their child from using these sites was somewhat higher among parents of girls (see graphs 12 and Graphs 13)
-Only 39.4% of parents said that they were able to judge which social networking sites were safe for their children to use. Of these, 59.1% said that they did so by using the site themselves and 51.1% said that they searched online for reviews of the site and reports of any incidents that had occurred. However, only 17.5% of parents said that they actually judged social networking sites safe for their children to use (see Graphs 14, Graphs 15. Graphs 16.)

▼Filtering considered an effective way to protect children from problems on social networking sites
-When asked about ways to protect children from problems on social networking sites, 73.9% said filtering, 53% said Internet safety classes, 47.7% said understanding of the website content on the part of the parents, and 46.7% said a strengthening of efforts by site operators. The order was the same when the same respondents were asked about which methods could be carried out immediately (see Graph 17)
-However, the parents of high-school students tended to trust filtering less than those of elementary and junior-high-school students (see Graph 18)
-As many as 77.1% of parents said that they would use a service that filtered social networking sites according to their level of risk, if such a service were available (see Graph 19)
-When asked what kinds of expert should judge the risk level of each site, the majority, 60.1%, said that it should be somebody from a company specializing in filtering (see Graph 20)

▼Parents trust the blocking of ads and links to adult sites to prevent problems; opinions of new “zoning” services by some site operators are still low.
-When parents were asked which efforts by site operators they trusted to reduce the various problems that arise online, “blocking ads and links to adult and dating sites” was top at 68.6%, followed by “checking the identity of all users at all times” at 55.8% and “consideration for children’s privacy on sites (blocking certain material)” at 51.3% (see Graph 21)
-When asked for their opinion of “zoning” services that show different site content or ads depending on whether the viewer is an adult or a child, the most popular response was “Cannot judge until I have actually seen the effects” at 36.8%. The service has only just been introduced and only by a few site operators, and its effectiveness in preventing problems has not yet been proven— thus trust in this service is not high at all (see Graph 22)
-The most common reason for distrust of zoning services was “Age cannot be reliably proven” at 82% (see Graph 23)

■About NetSTAR, Inc, and URL Lists 
　NetSTAR specializes in the development of URL filtering software and services, and in the collection, categorization, and delivery of URL lists. NetSTAR URL lists are used in a number of market-leading products like InterSafe WebFilter by Alps System Integration Co., Ltd., and InterScan and WebManager by Trend Micro Incorporated.  Recognized for its high performance and low false positive rate, our products are number one (*1) among large companies with strict quality requirements, including approximately 60% of prefectural governments, 40% of central governments, and 40% of the companies in the Nikkei Excellent Company Ranking. We also have a greater than 40% share of the market nationwide. (*2) 
NetSTAR's URL lists are now being used in security appliance products and routers for small- and medium-size businesses, and many individual customers are using them through our home-use filtering services. Over the years, NetSTAR has gained much recognition for the broad applicability of its individual URL lists as well as the quality and reliability of its collection, categorization, and delivery processes. NetSTAR’s URL lists for filtering services are the only lists that have been adopted by all mobile phone operators in Japan. (*3) 
http://www.netstar-inc.com/
*1. Based on NetSTAR's research *2. according to Fuji Chimera Research Institute *3. we distribute new lists daily for use in the filtering systems of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, Softbank Mobile, WILLCOM, and EMOBILE.

* NetSTAR is a registered trademark of NetSTAR, Inc. Other product and company names are the registered trademarks of their respective companies.