Kid-friendly email?

[annettemarie]

Anyone have suggestions for kid-friendly email that's also free. I found one, Zoobuh, but I don't really want to pay.

[expatmommy]

What do you mean by 'kid friendly'? My kids have had gmail accounts for almost 2 yrs. They are set up so that a duplicate copy always comes to my account. They haven't gotten any spam at all.

[annettemarie]

Michael had gmail, but still got some nasty spam. It went to the spam folder, but he still went and checked it out. And then he answered the spam and emailed them back "Dude, what's wrong with you? I'm only ten years old!". Which is not cool, and is why I am looking for something a little more secure. ")

[rainyday]

What do you mean by kid-friendly? How will your kids be using it, and what concerns do you have about it?

I set up an account through my regular internet provider, and I set up a list of people with whom DC could email (primarily family members). DC does occasionally get an email from the internet provider telling about changes or new services, but he knows he can delete those and that he shouldn't click on any links. We haven't had any problems with spam yet (and the account has been open for a couple of years). I did open the account a year or more before I told DS about it and set it up for him, so I knew for a fact that it hadn't received any spam since its inception, which did make me feel more comfortable with it. DS also knows not to give out his email address without permission from us, and we haven't had any issues with it.

I would not feel comfortable with something like yahoo that prints ads at the bottom of emails. Google has email, but if you do it through the web, there are ads. You can, however, set it up to forward automatically to another email address. I see all gmail through my regular email program. Perhaps that would be an option?

Ah, I just saw your son's previous experience with gmail. One thing that I think has been helpful for avoiding spam is to have a not-easily-guessed email address. I've heard that a lot of spam comes from generating likely addresses based on names and such. Our email is not so easily guessed, and perhaps for that reason it doesn't seem to have generated spam yet. I do have access to his email, and I check it periodically, but by far our biggest prevention is that he knows he is not to respond to anyone he does not know.

You can also set up lists of approved recipients. It's kind of a pain sometimes, but especially for children who have a rather limited list of contacts it might not be difficult to restrict their incoming email to a predetermined list. Other email could be rejected or sent to a different address for you to check.

[annettemarie]

He has a couple friends he wants to email, plus some family. I wouldn't let him use his email on any websites. I don't want ads, and I don't want people he doesn't know emailing him. He knows not to click on unknown links. He likes the independence of being able to have his own account.

I did find KOL, which is a kid version of AOL.

[rainyday]

Knowing that, maybe your best bet would be to just set up a list of allowed contacts. I don't know if you can do that through gmail directly, but you can certainly do it through outlook and other email programs. Is that an option?

[annettemarie]

Sure, if I can figure it out, LOL!

[rainyday]

Ok, I just checked this out. It turns out that I don't do this through Outlook. Instead, it's my internet provider that allows me to restrict incoming email to a specific list of addresses. If you check with your provider, it may provide this as an option.