Honestly Social, Sears "Team Up" To Bring Parents Facebook Monitoring Tool, Prevent Cyber-Bullying

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Honestly Social, the innovative online tool that helps parents monitor their teens' online activity, has announced an agreement with Sears' Team Up to Stop Bullying program to promote its service that makes Facebook safer for teens. Honestly Social uses email alerts and a dedicated timeline to help busy parents stay on top of the often-scary world of social media. The tool alerts parents if their teen is being bullied, bullying others, or engaging in other risky online behavior.

"In bullying-related suicides, often the parents of the victims and the bullies wished they had a warning, or help seeing the signs," said Marissa Wilson Gibbons, a co-founder of Honestly Social. "We were inspired to build a solution. Sears is helping put us directly into contact with the parents who need this service the most."

Sears' Team Up to Stop Bullying coalition includes more than 70 leading anti-bullying organizations, as well as celebrity ambassadors. Team Up to Stop Bullying's mission is to move the bullying conversation beyond awareness, and connect students, parents, and educators to immediate solutions.

Every month, Honestly Social will donate 10 percent of its revenue to the non-profit members of the Team Up to Stop Bullying coalition, and Sears will help spread the word about the innovative service among customers and the cause's supporters.

"Most of us know that bullying is a real problem, but our initiative is all about sharing actionable solutions," said Marie Newman, bullying solutions author and managing director of Team Up to Stop Bullying. "Technology has changed the game when it comes to protecting our teens. Honestly Social recognized this fact and offers a modern bullying solution all parents should consider."

With surveys showing that 25 percent of colleges use Facebook to vet candidates, bullying isn't the only thing parents are eager to stay on top of.

"It's not about censoring kids or invading their privacy - it's about alerting parents to certain behaviors so that they can have the appropriate conversation with their teens before issues escalate," said Wilson Gibbons. "Honestly Social isn't a substitute for great parenting, it's a tool for great parenting."

About Honestly Social
Launched in December 2012, Honestly Social is an online tool to help parents monitor their teens' Facebook activity. The tool uses alerts and a dedicated timeline to keep parents updated on all of their kid's Facebook activity and let them know when their kid is being bullied, bullying others, or engaging in inappropriate or problematic behavior online. Every month, Honestly Social donates over 10% of revenue to Team Up to Stop Bullying. We're a motley crew of second and third-time founders, engineering visionaries, Harvard MBAs, user experience maniacs, venture capitalists, Fortune 500 consultants, and pop culture aficionados. But what we all love to do is build new solutions to big problems. We work hard but take our commitment to fun very seriously. And even though we've built a product for parents, we never really left our teenage selves behind. For more information, please visit the Honestly Social website at www.honestlysocial.com.

About Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Sears, Roebuck and Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ: SHLD), is a leading broadline retailer providing merchandise and related services and is part of SHOP YOUR WAY, a social shopping experience where members have the ability to earn points and receive benefits across a wide variety of physical and digital formats through ShopYourWay.com.  Sears, Roebuck offers its wide range of home merchandise, apparel and automotive products and services through more than 2,000 Sears-branded and affiliated stores in the United States and Canada, which includes over 810 Full-line and more than 1,270 specialty stores in the U.S.   Sears, Roebuck also offers a variety of merchandise and services through sears.com, landsend.com, and specialty catalogs. Sears, Roebuck offers consumers leading proprietary brands including Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard and Lands' End -- among the most trusted and preferred brands in the U.S.  The company is the nation's largest provider of home services, with more than 11 million service calls made annually. For more information, visit the Sears, Roebuck website at www.sears.com or the Sears Holdings Corporation website at www.searsholdings.com.

SOURCE Sears, Roebuck and Co.