Is Somebody Spying on Your IM Session?

I'm all in favor of families setting rules about Internet use and I'm even in favor of using technology to help monitor and filter things for age-appropriateness. What I'm not in favor of is spying. Yet, I'm hearing from more and more parents who don't bat an eyelash when they talk about their obligation to spy on their kids' emails and chats.

So a queasy feeling came over me as I watched a demonstration of ChatChecker, which secretly monitors the computers in your home. ChatChecker seems like a noble effort and a worthwhile piece of technology. It's absolutely free (a premium version with more features is available for a fee) and it's developed by Imbrella, a company that really seems to care about doing the right thing.

ChatChecker works with AOL's AIM instant messenger (not AIM Express), Microsoft's MSN instant messenger, Yahoo!'s instant messenger, ICQ instant messenger, Trillian's instant messenger, GoogleTalk, and many of the third party instant messenger clients that use these protocols. MySpace IM support will be available any day.

According to the manufacturer, ChatChecker is quite impossible for a child to detect on their machine unless they're some sort of hacker-in-training. The software processes every TCP/IP packet on the PC, extracts the instant messages, and stores them on the ChatChecker website.

To use it, you download and install a piece of software on each PC you want monitored. IM conversations are stored on the ChatChecker website, or you can choose to be alerted when words you've deemed worth flagging appear in a message.

Products like ChatChecker (which, by the way, are also sold to be used in corporate environments) play an important role in providing tools to help parents make decisions about Internet use in their homes. I don't want the software to go away. I just hope that parents will, unless unusual circumstances warrant spying, let their children know that their computers are under surveillance. And I hope that Imbrella, a company with obviously good intentions would take language like "secretly records and captures your kid's IM chats" out of its promotional materials.

Grocery stores have made us comfortable with signs like "this premise is under surveillance." There's no reason why computers can't be under a watchful eye, either; just put the sign up. What do you think? Is it OK to secretly record your kids' computer conversations?