Parental controls put limits on what each user on a particular computer can do and see. Each account is password protected and will put limits on the entire computer experience, not just Yahoo Games.

Parental controls will affect:

• The types of websites that user can access.
• Specific websites that user can or can’t access.
• The amount of time that is spent online by that user.
• Who the user can email and instant message with.
• Get reports about the user’s online activity.

Changing Parental Controls

There are ways to change the parental controls, but only if you are the administrator or “master” of that system. If you don’t have the administrative password for that computer, there is not a lot you can do. Computers don’t come prepackaged with parental controls, so someone, somewhere must have set them. This is a tutorial on how to change parental controls using an AT&T account, but the process should be similar regardless of your provider.

1. Double click on the desktop Icon for AT&T Yahoo, or find it in the Programs list.
2. Right click on the Online Protection System tray and select Online Protection.
3. You will immediately see a window that will tell you whether parental controls are on or off.
4. Click on Parental Controls and sign in. You must be logged in as an administrator in order to change the settings. If you are logged in as another user, you can see the parental controls but you can’t change any of the settings.
5. If you are in as administrator, sign in and click Edit Settings. From here you can deactivate the controls or change the settings.

Parental Controls in Vista

Windows Vista has parental controls as a built-in feature. It is part of the User Accounts and Family Safety Control Panel applet. Get into this applet and you can set limits on games, web browsing, etc. These settings will not work on domain-joined machines.

Third Party Parental Controls

There are also many third-party parental control programs that can be purchased and installed on your computer. Each of these operates slightly differently, but in all cases, you are going to need a password and an administrator account in order to change the settings. You can see if one of these is on your machine by going to Start and then All Programs.

The short answer is that it is easy to change parental controls, as long as you have the administrative password or sign in.

Kat Delong | March 31st, 2009
Tags: yahoo parental controls
Categories: Gaming

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