Concerned with Internet safety for children, McAfee.com (Nasdaq: MCAF) Tuesday launched an initiative aimed at educating Internet users about the dangers that children face while online.

The Sunnyvale-based Internet security ASP unveiled McAfee.com Kids, a Web site that will focus on the protection of children through safe practices, parent/teacher involvement and technology.

McAfee.com says it hopes to raise public awareness around Internet dangers that have increased dramatically over the past several years.

"As the father of an 11-year old son, I feel it's critical that we find ways to defend our children against inappropriate or dangerous influences on the Internet," says McAfee.com CEO Srivats Sampath. "I hope that parents and teachers utilize this material and that it helps to protect the safety of our children. This is the first step in our support for this cause and we will continue to enrich the site with additional information and resources while also building upon and improving our software services that assist parents and teachers in this effort."

For students, the site offers some important "Do's & Don'ts" of Internet safety and privacy, tips for making friends online, tips for chatting, Q & A for kids and teens and a interactive learning software demo that helps young people build skills and reduce involvement in violence and risky behavior.

The site also includes classroom lesson plans, such as "Guard Your Net," an Internet safety and privacy program, which will be distributed to thousands of middle schools around the country.

"The vast majority of safety related problems encountered by children online are caused by errors in understanding on the part of the child and can be avoided," says President and CEO of SafetyEd.org Colin Hatcher. "If we ensure, through proactive education, that children clearly understand the issues of safety, privacy and trust when using the Internet, we will empower them to take good care of themselves while online. Sooner or later, our kids will be unsupervised in cyberspace, and that's when we need them to make wise choices."

Eye Opening Statistics

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Despite prevention tactics, children are repeated targets for deviant behavior on the Internet. Here are just some of the statistics compiled by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families.

In 1998, the FBI opened up roughly 700 cases dealing with online pedophilia, most of them for posting child pornography, and about a quarter dealing with online predators trying to get children under 18 to meet with them. By 2000 that figure had quadrupled to 2,856 cases.

Nearly a third (31 percent) of kids age 10-17 from households with computers (24 percent of all kids 10-17) say they have seen a pornographic web site.

More than 1.4 million Americans are stalked each year - four out of five are women - and stalkers are increasingly using the Internet, E-mail and other electronic communication devices. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office estimates that about 20 percent of its stalking cases involve electronic harassment, while the New York City Police Department says almost 40 percent of its computer investigations do.

McAfee's safety drive is part of its Internet Privacy Service program, which it launched last year. The program gives users the ability to selectively filter Internet content they want individual members of their families to view, send and receive.

As part of the Internet safety focus, McAfee.com is offering special pricing for its Internet Privacy Service to visitors to the McAfee.com Kids Web site during the next 90 days. Site visitors can sign up for the service for a 30 percent discounted annual subscription rate of $19.95.