Snoop on your kid's texting, cell phone calls, and more...

TechGuard is a new program enables parents to read text messages and e-mails their kids are sending and receiving, and to monitor their cell phone calls. It gives parents the capability of blocking such traffic, should they decide a sender is an undesirable influence. It's also marketed to employers looking to keep tabs on employees.

Another program, called Loopt, enables parents to follow their kids on a map, to know whether they're really at the library, or off doing something else! Loopt takes advantage of the GPS tracking devices built into most cell phones. It's also being used as a social networking tool, so kids can know where there friends are, etc.

These programs are a small part of a growing market of security and monitoring software that gives users more and more access to private lives, and that some say could be an invasion of privacy. But most parents whose opinions were sampled said they'd have no problem using such software.

TechGuard works by downloading a program on a cell phone. Right now, it only works with BlackBerry or Windows Mobile. You go to the Internet and you set up an account, and you track as many numbers as you want. So, when you log onto the Website, you can see all activity: You can read all text messages, ingoing and outgoing, you can also read e-mails, and call logs. You can also see mobile browsing history, and what someone else is maybe surfing online.

Kids Will probably know their cell phones are tracked, because it's an application. But, you're probably paying for that phone, so you have the right to put whatever application on that phone that you want. TechGuard costs about $11 a month for a specific amount of data.