I'm against any form of spyware. Especially spying on your children most likely does more harm than it helps. I agree that you need to know about the habits and friends of your children. However, a spy tool simply destroys any trust a child has build in their parents as soon as the child finds out. And will be just a matter of time until the child finds out about the spyware on it's computer.

Bringing up a child in a way that it trusts it's parents is essential and is necessary to be rewarded with the same trust. Software is not supposed to do a parents job. Parents should inform themselves and talk to their children about dangers on the web. If they maintain a trustful atmosphere in the family, there is not much chance a child will fall for some pervert online. If it learns that it's parents are spying on it, it's much likely that the child will just look for other adults which it can trust. And exactly this is the situation what those sickos are fishing for.

So for me any software of this kind is absolutely nono! However, I would strongly support any software that tells parents each and every day: 'Have you talked to your child today!' And a red button had to flash, starting in one corner of the monitor and slowly moving to the center, until the child has disabled the button with it's own password.