Symantec Launches Public Beta for Norton Online Family

Norton Online Family
Norton Online Family

Symantec announced Wednesday the launch of a public beta of Norton Online Family. Three new service combines a client-side monitoring app and Web-based reporting for parents to monitor where their kids go online.

In a statement, Symantec called the service a, "a unique Internet safety service built on a philosophy of dialogue between parents and kids." It has been built around the idea of fostering dialogue between parents and children, as opposed to the service itself serving as a watchdog.

For instance, parents can not monitor their kids in any kind of stealth mode, but at the same time, everything the children do is simply sent to the parent via the Web-based reporting tool. Norton Online Family will track Web-based searching and the sites those searches lead to, and it will show parents which social networking sites their children log into, along with their submitted name and age.

Norton Online Family is available to both Mac and Windows based computers, and the public beta is free. Symantec is offering an extended online video promoting and explaining the service on the Norton Online Family home page.