The European Commission presented a report in which it considers that the social networks could improve the default settings in order to better protect minors' privacy. Although a majority of sites tested do give youngsters age-appropriate safety information, only two out of nine social networking sites (Habbo Hotel and Xbox Live) have default settings.

According to a report approved by the European Commission, most of the sites tested do give youngsters age-appropriate safety information, guidance and/or educational materials specifically targeted at minors and respond to requests for help. However, they do not have default settings in order to better protect minors' privacy. This report confirms the precedent report published by the Commission in June in which most of the social networks had not default settings to protect minors.

Only two of the nine sites tested, Habbo Hotel and Xbox Live, have default settings which make minors' personal and identifiable information visible by default only to their approved list of contacts, regardless of how much information about themselves is posted on their profiles. In the other seven websites tested results showed that a considerable amount of personal information - including information added by users after registration - was displayed by default to users beyond the minor's approved contacts list. Moreover, in six of the services, minors' profiles could be directly accessed by friends of friends. Unregistered users could get access to minors' profiles via their blog, or a video or picture the minor had posted online. Eight out of the nine sites tested provide safety information, guidance and/or educational materials specifically targeted at minors (all except Windows Live). In Windows Live the information provided was aimed rather at parents or guardians. Dailymotion, Flickr, Habbo Hotel, Yahoo! Pulse, Skyrock, Stardoll and YouTube provide safety information for children and parents which is both easy to find and to understand. By default, only in one of the nine services tested could profiles of minors be found by name searches either via internal or external search engines (e.g. Google, Bing or Yahoo!).

In particular, the report looks at implementation of the "Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU" by blogging (Skyrock) and gaming (Xbox Live) platforms, photo and video sharing platforms (YouTube, Dailymotion, Flickr), virtual worlds (Habbo Hotel, Stardoll), platforms that have some social networking functionalities (Windows Live) and platforms that allow the creation of personal profiles with the possibility of uploading blog entries, photos and updates (Yahoo! Pulse). The tests were carried out between March and June 2011.

As part of the objective set by the Digital Agenda for Europe, to enhance trust in the Internet, the Commission is reviewing protection of minors online from such risks as grooming and cyber-bullying. The results of the two surveys of implementation of the Safer Social Networking Principles will be taken into account by the Commission in a comprehensive initiative to empower and protect children when using new technologies due later this year.