Google launches "Family Safety Center"

Google has launched a new Family Safety Center page, giving advice on how to restrict adult content shown on its services and report abuse.

"There are parts of the real world that you wouldn’t let your children explore unsupervised—and that goes for the online world as well", said the company's Kate Hammond in a blog post.

"But while most of us remember being taught to cross the road and not talk to strangers, we probably weren’t taught how much personal information we should share online or how to handle cyberbullies. Therefore, it’s no surprise when parents and teachers tell us they want to learn more about how to help their kids use the Internet safely and responsibly", she added.

The Safety Centre provides information on how to use the SafeSearch tools built into Google's search engine, as well as how to prevent children from changing this setting and how to restrict YouTube searches using Safety Mode.

Another section explains how to report inappropriate content or behaviour on the company's YouTube, Buzz, Picasa and Blogger services. There's also advice from a variety of American child-safety organisations and video tips from parents working at Google.

The Family Safety Center is just one of several new tools launched by the search giant this week. Yesterday it announced its new Google Instant search system, while a few days ago it updated its Gmail email service with a new Priority Inbox tool.