First off I am curious having not seen the report, what potential harm are
we trying to protect children from?  In the US various groups have focused
on harm from pornography, from commercialism/advertising, and the most
serious child predators in chat rooms and IM sites.  I am unclear how it is
proposed to educate children about these harms or other harms prior to
testing.

I have done one study examining children's use and understanding of
commercial web sites and have found that children ages 6 - 9 have very low
levels of awareness of the selling/persuasive intent of these sites.  This
finding is very similar to the findings from the 1970's and television
advertising.  However when I replicated the television advertising studies
I found that the children of today are much more aware of the
selling/persuasive intent of television advertising.  In reviewing the
literature it seems that experience with the medium is the greatest
contributor to this increase in understanding.

Media literacy and advertising literacy programs in the US have met with
limited success showing only short-term benefit.  Also, the information had
to be accessed immediately preceeding viewing or during viewing of the
advertisement or programming.  I am curious as to what will be covered in
an internet/web literacy course, who will teach it and what pre and post
measures will be taken to measure success.

Dr. Catharine M. Curran
Assistant Professor of Marketing
Department of Marketing and Management
College of Business Administration
Creighton University
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE  68178
Office phone:  402-280-2609
Fax:  402-280-5565