Internet porn and its alarming visibility rates have always been a topic discussed with much interest worldwide. The ethical strains of the issue still stay debatable while there would be no denying that what has been done to shield children from the perils of porn on the Net, is not enough.

• 95% of kids have accidentally viewed online pornography
• The average age for first exposure to pornography is 11 to 15
• A third of juveniles say they learn about sex by viewing porn

There have been commendable efforts by individuals and organisations towards facilitating a shield for families to guard children from Net porn ProtectKids.com is one such effort. And a compact one at that. Here, all the filtering takes place on the servers and not on the computer. Every time an Internet address is typed in, a link is clicked on or a word is searched for, the address or the word is routed to computers where it is checked against the ProtectKids’s block list.

If the request made is not on the list, the browser proceeds to the requested site. If otherwise, you get a message stating the requested site has been blocked. The whole process takes less than a second once it reaches the Internet.

With ProtectKids.com, the browsers don't even have to do monthly downloads, constant monitoring or rating sites.

Prepare your child for accidental exposure to pornography. Explain that adults view pornography as some form of ‘fantasy’ rather than reality and that, in truth, porn does not reflect real life, real bodies, or real sex – it distorts them. Encourage your child not to hesitate about coming to you about anything they see online which upsets or disturbs them.

Keep an eye on your kid’s browsing history – not to censor or spy on them, but to keep them safe online.

Set up different user accounts on home PCs/laptops for every member of the family and activate parental controls on the kid’s accounts.

Whether to filter the content your kid is accessing or not is obviously based on your personal convictions and values. Many filters have already hit the market, with provisions ranging from keeping history off accessed content to blocking access to chat and undesirable content.

Different filtering tools operate in different fashions. Certain tools limit access to a specific list of websites classified as "inappropriate." While some companies pick what should be filtered, others let parents do it, among pre-set categories.

Some companies operate by employing people to look at and classify web pages into categories that a parent may or may not choose to block.

Certain filtering tools limit access to sites containing key words like "breast." There are also tools which block only the bad words and not the text surrounding them. Some filters apply to websites, others to e-mail, chat and instant messaging, newsgroups, or a combination.