Kids' Summer Internet Use Cited as Major Employee Concern in Wall Street Journal Article

June 2006

In an article printed in The Wall Street Journal titled 'Remote Control: Parents Use Software To Track Kids' Online Activity From Work,' writer Sue Shellenbarger discussed the concerns parents have regarding their children's Internet use during the summer months. According to Shelllenbarger, "More than one-fourth of parents cite worries about kids spending too much time online as a top summer child-care fear." The article noted that a growing number of parents are using consumer software such as Spector Pro to monitor their kids' home Internet use from work. According to Shellenbarger, "Parents say they gain invaluable information about their children, plus the power to control what they do online."

About.com Gives Spector Pro Highest Rating of 5 Stars, Calling It "The Best of the Best"

April 2005

According to reviewer Tony Bradley, "Spector Pro rocks - plain and simple!" Bradley continues, "Spector Pro is the world's best selling monitoring and surveillance software. Spector Pro contains seven integrated tools that record virtually every minute detail and action on a computer: chat sessions, instant messages, emails sent and received, web sites visited, keystrokes typed, programs launched and peer to peer file searching and swapping."

He concluded, "SpectorSoft more or less defines the market for this type of software. If you want to monitor children, employees or even your own computer Spector Pro 5.0 is the best of the best."

Houston Chronicle Recommends Spector Pro to Aid Concerned Parents

December 28, 2004

Houston Chronicle writer Anne Reeks recommended Spector Pro for parents worried about the rash of recent news stories concerning children who are arranging to meet strangers over the Internet. According to the article, which highlighted the case of girl who went missing after meeting a man online, "Even more alarming, an FBI official said cases of Houston area minors being lured away by online 'friends' have been increasing, to over one a week."

Spector Pro Wins PC Magazine Editors' Choice

August 3, 2004

Calling Spector Pro "the best choice," PC Magazine awarded the product with its Editors' Choice for the SECOND time. Spector Pro originally won this honor in July 2002. PC Magazine's Sebastian Rupley noted that Spector Pro has "abundant options for customization - which is great for power users." The magazine also liked both eBlaster and Spector Pro's stealth mode saying, "eBlaster and Spector Pro do the best job of hiding: We found no traces of either app in the Windows Registry." They also commented on the products' application tracking, "Only eBlaster and Spector Pro provide the total time the given app is open as well as the active time - the amount of time the program remains in the Windows foreground."

The review concluded, "Spector Pro is the best choice. Logging the user's every keystroke and taking frequent screen grabs, the program is simple enough to use and offers the most powerful and complete assortment of monitoring and reporting features among the tools we've tested. It is also the only monitoring application we looked at that offers time management features."

InfoWorld says SpectorSoft Simplifies Snooping

May 9, 2003

"Being nosy can be good for business," says Curtis Franklin in his article 'Every word they type, every link they click.' Franklin notes, "There are many legitimate reasons for an organization to want to know what's happening on its computers. From industrial espionage, to sabotage, and workplace harassment suits, it's not hard to understand the strong financial incentives that may exist for keeping tabs on employees' workstations." He continues, "SpectorSoft offers a pair of products that allow an IT department to observe virtually all activity on individual workstations. Spector Pro and e-Blaster 3.0 are separate solutions to a common problem. Each offers an inexpensive way to monitor the actions and data running through a computer's keyboard and screen."

NBC Today Show says SpectorSoft Products Help Parents Protect Children

January 14, 2003

In a segment titled "Keeping Your Child Safe Online" the NBC Today Show discussed SpectorSoft products eBlaster and Spector Pro, saying the monitoring tools were extremely useful in helping parents protect their children online.

MSNBC says Workers' Web Habits No Secret with SpectorSoft

January 6, 2003

Michelle Swafford talked about Spector Pro and eBlaster in an article titled, 'Workers' Web Habits are no Secret.' Swafford says, "SpectorSoft Corp. has two software programs - eBlaster and Spector Pro - available for companies to monitor employees or parents to monitor their children's computer activities. Spector Pro records everything for viewing later while eBlaster tracks everything and then e-mails a report of the computer's activity to a designated person. Both programs can monitor e-mails, Internet use, instant messaging and word processing programs."

The article goes on to quote SpectorSoft spokesperson Kasey Sellati, "It really gives you a very complete picture of what's going on because it's like you were sitting there." Sellati said SpectorSoft's customers use the software to make sure employees aren't wasting time, saying inappropriate things or giving out confidential information.

On Computers, Spy, CounterSpy

September, 2002

"SpectorSoft is one of a handful of companies that make what might be called surveillance software. The target market is business and the stated objective is for a manager to see what the employees actually do when they are at the company computers. Are they working or are they playing dungeons and dragons. (Lest you think this is too paranoid, it's worth noting that a study of Internet use by the U.S. Treasury Department found that over half of all Internet use by employees of the Internal Revenue Service was for personal, not job-related, reasons.)"

The Instant-Mess Age - 'IM' Isn't Private, and That's a Problem for Firms, Workers

July 21, 2002

"Companies are just becoming more aware of abuse" by employees, says Fowler. His customers are looking for workers who spend all day on the Internet, who frequent porn sites and who send instant messages with disparaging information about the company. Fowler says one customer found out that an employee was embezzling money; another found that workers were running other businesses on company time or looking for new jobs all day."

PC Magazine Awards Spector Pro Editors' Choice

July 2002

In a cover story and review of monitoring products titled 'Watching You, Watching Me', Spector Pro won PC Magazine's Editors' Choice. According to writer Karen Bannen, "Spector Pro stands above the rest." The writer noted, "Spector Pro's interface is the most sophisticated." The article goes on to praise Spector Pro's "handy extras" including "a VCR-like control panel to play back screenshots", "the ability to begin taking screenshots more frequently after detecting a keyword" and the product's log retrieval functionality.

Ladies' Home Journal says Spector Reduces Conflict and Offers "Peace of Mind"

July 2002

Exploring parenting in the age of the Internet, Ladies' Home Journal examined monitoring software programs that help keep kids from harm. One suburban Philadelphia housewife who uses Spector finds that it brought her 'peace of mind.' According to the story, titled "Mother is Watching," Julia was concerned about her daughter Melanie after finding her missing from the house at 3 AM. She turned to Spector and found that everything was okay. Despite leaving the home at 3 AM, her daughter had met a female friend that night and Julia was reassured that "nothing dramatic was going on." Asked if monitoring is worth it, she said "There'd be a lot more conflict if I wasn't sure Melanie was behaving herself".

TechTV.com says eBlaster Should Be at the "Top of Your List"

December 17, 2001

Awarding it 4 stars, TechTV.com said of eBlaster, "If keeping an eye on things from a remote location is of paramount importance, SpectorSoft's eBlaster should be at the top of your list." According to reviewer Ray Weigel, "This software goes into deep hiding on the computer on which it's installed. It secretly monitors such information as which programs have been running, how long they've been actively in use, and which keystrokes were typed. The biggest plus to this electronic snooping is that once a full report has been compiled, it's sent via email from the suspect computer without the user's knowledge."

People Magazine Article Suggests Parents Use SpectorSoft Products to Uncover Kids' MySpace Passwords

June 5, 2006

In a People Magazine article titled 'MySpace Nation: The Controversy' some of the dangers of MySpace are noted including how it "attracts creeps and pervs." The story notes that MySpace is "an online playground for kids with an astounding 16 million having their own web pages." Internet safety expert Parry Aftab advises readers that it is imperative that parents know their child's MySpace password, and if the child won't volunteer it, to use SpectorSoft software to uncover the password.

Newsday Article: Parents Should "Absolutely" Track Kids' Online Activity

July 2, 2005

In a story titled 'Tracking your Kids Online' the author asked parents if they should track the Internet activity of their children. Rebecca Hagelin, who uses SpectorSoft to track her three teenagers, said, "Absolutely...It's allowed my children to enjoy all the benefits the latest technology has to offer them, and it's allowed me to protect them from the dangers of some of the new technology," she says. "It's a win-win."

TIME Magazine Includes SpectorSoft Products in Front Cover Article

July 2, 2001

A TIME Magazine front cover feature titled 'Internet Insecurity' featured SpectorSoft products. According to the writer, Adam Cohen, "What can you expect if someone puts SpectorSoft's Spector on your computer? It will secretly take hundreds of snapshots an hour of every website, chat group and e-mail that appears on your screen, and store them so that the special someone who is spying on you can review them later. SpectorSoft's eBlaster will send the spy detailed e-mail reports updating your computer activities as often as every 30 minutes. These products work in stealth mode, so the people being spied on are totally unaware."

Fortune Reports on How Spector Helped a Parent Catch Pedophile

March 19, 2001

In their feature, 'Top 10 Tech Trends to Bet On', Eric Nee & Peter H. Lewis reported on a SpectorSoft customer who used the product to catch a teacher who was preying on his daughter. According to the writers, "A man in Memphis secretly installed Spector on his 13- year-old stepdaughter's personal computer last fall and discovered, by reading her private e-mail, that she was having sex with her 37-year-old schoolteacher."

Spector Featured on NBC Nightly News

March 17, 2001

NBC Nightly News aired a segment that showed ways that parents can keep track of where their children are and what they are up to. The report discussed how parents are using monitoring tools to find out exactly what their children are doing on the Internet. A parent who uses Spector talked about how he used the software.