Dutch snippets of the week

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Chatbox moderation

Bullying, hate mail and sexual harassment on internet happen in the chatrooms for youngsters daily. Recently the Youth journal, the Dutch news site for youngster, closed the chatroom as the children were only talking about sex. Now a group of operators of youngsters’ sites like TMF. Kaboem, chatten.nl, Jetix, Kindertent.nl, CU2 and Sugababes have taken measures to keep the chatroom a happy place. In practice it means that youngsters will have to behave online in the same way as in daily life. Help buttons will be made clearly visible on the sites and the operators are obliged to answer a mail with complaints or questions within two days. Also moderators will supervise the conversations. And anonymous registration is no longer possible.

Parents do not worry about their childrens’ behaviour

A survey by internet ISP Wanadoo held among 450 children and parents as well as among pupils of four schools reveals that parents do not worry about the use of Internet. 64 per cent of the parents have instructed their children what sites they are not allowed to visit (sex, porn, hate and horror sites as well as gambling sites). But they do not take explicit measures for safe Internet by accompanying the kids on Internet, putting the computer in the living room, check the e-mail or the MSN contact list. Only 24 per cent of the parents has applied a parental control program.

Banks work on the introduction of Ideal

The group of Dutch banks are to introduce a new internet payment system. ABN Amro, ING Bank, Postbank and Rabobank are to introduce iDeal, which looks like a digital version of pin payment systems. The system is especially developed for web shops. The system does not use creditcards. For a demonstration have a look at the Rabo site.

Dutch public broadcast to be changed

The Dutch public broadcast system will be reorganised over the next three years. Programs will be stopped, budgets reduced and NPS, a broadcast organisation without members, will be discontinued.

NRC Handelsblad 10 years online

The website of the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad exists 10 years. The site is now in version 4. It has gone from a free site to a site, where users have to sign up. In the meantime the newspaper is promoting its hybrid subscription, for which a subscriber receives a daily electronic copy, except for the Saturday edition.