News: When parents spy on their kids.

SPY GAMES AS PARENTS KEEP TABS ON KIDS

Some 41 per cent of Australian parents admitted to ‘spying’ on their children using social media. Digital security company AVG Technologies surveyed 4400 parents in 11 countries to see what kind of a record they kept of their children.

Michael McKinnon, Security Advisor at AVG (AU/NZ) Pty Ltd, said, “AVG’s latest research encourages us to consider whether Facebook and other social networking sites are creating a new kind of parental relationship, or whether we are in effect spying on our teens? These sites are providing parents with new methods to monitor what their kids are doing without necessarily having to be ‘heavy handed’ or to quiz their child directly.”

Just over half think schools are doing an adequate job at teaching Internet safety and skills.

So, what do you reckon?

REAL DOCTORS WARN AGAINST ‘GOOGLE DIAGNOSIS’

Actual doctors have warned would-be patients against diagnosing themselves on Google, saying it could have terrible counsequences.

NSW Australian Medical Association medical director Dr Robyn Napier said diagnosis through the popular search engine could have devastating consequences.

“It’s a serious problem,” she said. “When you take a symptom out of context of the whole body you can’t possibly diagnose.”

Some 80 per cent of Australians used the search engine to check their symptoms and decide what is wrong with them, sometimes without seeking any follow-up medical opinion.

– As Mia Freedman wrote, Google is not the same as science.

WORK COMPO FOR HOTEL SEX INJURY

Remember this one? Well, we have a winner.

A woman who was hit by a falling light fixture while having sex in her hotel room on a work trip has won compensation for the incident. Justice John Nicholas found she was injured ‘during the course of her employment’.

The light was attached to the wall above the bed. The male partner said in his statement they were ‘going hard’ and he wasn’t sure whether they bumped it or it fell off.

THE WEEK IN PICS: is a hotbed of sublime supermodels (she’s 83), amazing artists and photos that will boggle the mind.

HOCKEY SAYS AGE OF ‘ENTITLEMENT’ IS OVER

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has warned Australians need to wean themselves off welfare if the Australian Government is to remain on a solid economic footing. He even aimed his sights at the Howard Government which he said offered too much welfare to too many for short term political gain. His comments cited nations in Europe that spent close to 30 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product on welfare, health and pensions. The figure in Australia is about 16 per cent.

“We need to be ever vigilant. We need to compare ourselves with our Asian neighbours where the entitlements programs of the state are far less than in Australia,” he told Lateline.

He said the welfare measures under Howard were ‘fuelled by short-term electoral cycles and the political outbidding of your opponent’.

The Prime Minister leaped on the remarks, saying: “Mr Hockey was saying to Australian families that if you feel entitled to your family payments, that if you feel entitled to your child care support, if you feel entitled to things like Medicare, well you shouldn’t.

“Because Mr Hockey believes there should be widespread cutbacks to those very services and supports that families rely on.”

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Hockey was making the ‘very obvious point’ that governments have to live within their means.

MEN AT WORK STAR FOUND DEAD

Homicide detectives are at the Melbourne home of Men at Work band member Greg Ham who was found dead yesterday morning. However police won’t say whether the circumstances of his passing are suspicious or not, only that there are ‘unexplained issues’. The band are most famous for their classic hit Down Under which was most recently the subject of a copyright infringement with a court finding the flute riff was almost exactly the same as the children’s song Kookaburra.