Site Maps Sex Offenders Based on Your Address
The Internet has, in many ways, made it more difficult for parents to keep their kids safe. Children have access to just about any sort of illicit content you can think of. That said, the Internet has also made it easier to keep track of kids, whether by monitoring what they do online, who they chat with, or -- in this case -- quickly and easily finding the location of sex offenders in your neighborhood. We earlier posted about the site Familywatchdog.us, which enables parents (or anyone else) to look for sex offenders near a certain address and even receive text alerts when offenders move into the area, all for free.
Now Vision 20/20 offers much the same service. This site is also free to use, but it seems to have a different, more shady purpose. Vision 20/20 is owned by ThinAir Wireless Corporation and is effectively an advertising tool for its GPS tracking systems. The company's main service lets you put a transmitter on a child or pet and keep an eye on his/her whereabouts.
We compared the two services' online offerings, and while Vision 20/20 has the prettier and more seamless site, Family Watchdog offers more information about the offenders, color-coded icons to indicate the type of offense committed, and an indication of offender workplaces. Schools are also shown on the map on Family Watchdog, which is key information if you're thinking about moving to a new district. However, 20/20 is easier to use, and Family Watchdog's pages are riddled with ad banners.
To be totally safe, we recommend hitting up both sites for information then signing up for text alerts from Family Watchdog to keep yourself up-to-date.
From TechCrunch
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
icpgurl said 4:29PM on 8-27-2007
Unfortunately, if you look closer and compare the two sites Vision 20/20 is more than lacking in the number of offenders that they are displaying on the map. It is unfortunate that someone may go to this Vision site thinking they have complete information and miss the offender that is right up the street from them. Both maps are displaying a 5 mile radius. Vision 20/20 has 54 offenders listed to the left of the map for my zip code. On family watchdog there 549 Offenders and 67 Non-Mappable Offenders. I will trade the "prettier and more seamless site" for accurate and complete information. To me, having some ads at the side of the map on familywatchdog.us does not take away from the fact that the information on the map is complete and would be alot more helpful to my family that the nice looks of the other site. I hope that other people see the actual information that the site is showing and not just how it looks at a glimpse...for their children’s' sake!
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