Parental control systems for child's on-line accounts

Abstract

On-line parental control systems are provided in connection with ‘activity for credit’ systems where a child earns credits into an account by performing prescribed activity. The credit earned may be spent on goods and services, and in particular in on-line transactions. Both spending and earning activity are controlled by a parent or other guardian by way of a special account login. A parent may designate earning parameters and further spending rules to control activity of her child. Accordingly, and on-line control system is coupled via the Internet to a user community including a child member and a parent member. A member account includes a parent facility with a rule library and lesson library. By way of a parent control module, a parent set parameters of the member account which cannot be manipulated by the child. Thereafter, the member account performs in a manner suitable to the parent in view of her selections.

1 ) On-line gaming control apparatus comprising:
 a membership database, and   an applications and services system,   the on-line gaming control apparatus coupled to the Internet,   said applications and services system comprising an access restricted parent control module coupled to a parent facility of a profile portion of a member account object,   whereby a parent user may adjust the state of variables in the rule library and lesson plan after successful log-in via the parent control module to affect use parameters of any particular member account associated with the log-in.   
     
     
         2 ) On-line gaming control apparatus of  claim 1 ,
 said membership database is comprised of a plurality of member accounts each member account having two distinct log-ins associated therewith including a parent user log-in and a child user log-in, the parent login is arranged to provide access to the parent facility where rule states may be changed and lesson plans designed and prescribed, the child login is arranged to prevent access to the parent facility and prohibit changes thereto.   
     
     
         3 ) On-line gaming control apparatus of  claim 1 ,
 said parent control module being coupled to the rule library and lesson plan elements of the profile parent facility and comprising a graphical user interface server operable for serving over a communications network graphical user interfaces operable to be played and manipulated at a remote computing system fashioned as a parent workstation, whereby the states of rule library and lesson plan elements may be changed by a parent user logged-in to a particular member account.