Proceed With Caution

Certain activities and areas of the Internet require special caution. They can be fun and valuable when used properly, but can be easily abused and misused. It's important that you wear your cyber-thinking cap when you do these things, and teach your children how to use theirs. Children who are too young to be able to follow your rules consistently should be supervised when they participate in these activities, or be restricted from them until they are old enough to follow the rules.

These include: sharing personal information with others online, instant messaging, personal profiles, personal websites, pen pal programs, chatting online, registering at sites or for contests, using credit cards online, buying at auctions, opening attachments to instant messages and e-mails and even searching for sites.

Here are some basic rules you need to follow and teach your children to follow:

Don't share personal information that would allow someone to find you offline. Think about that carefully...have you shared your full name and city where you live? If so, someone can find you at an online directory if you have a listed telephone number. Have you registered at a directory that allows people to find you online? Has your child? Has your child given out information about their school or their sports team? Could a virtual Sherlock Homes find you with the information available about you online? If so, it's time to start deleting that information.

You don't have to respond to every message someone sends you. Just because someone wants to talk to you on the street or a stranger calls you on the phone, we don't talk to anyone we don't want to talk to. But somehow, online we respond diffferently. If you or your child gets an unsolicited instant message or e-mail from a stranger, you don't have to, and your child shouldn't, respond.

Don't register or shop at a site unless you are sure that they are who they say they are. Make sure you know who you are dealing with. While you might be perfectly happy sharing personal information with the New York Times at their site, you might be less comfortable sharing it with Johnny Con Artist. Also using a credit card online is very safe, as long as you provide it to a reliable merchant (you wouldn't hand your credit card to any stranger in a mall would you?), and as long as you are using a secure transmission. (This will have an unbroker lock or a key on the lower left-hand corner of your web browser.) If in doubt, go to a directory-type search engine, like Yahoo or Lycos and search for the link to the site from there. Directory search engines review the sites they include, and would contain the correct url for the site you're seeking.

Know the rules of the auction game before you start bidding, and check out the seller first. Online auctions are great ways of getting bargains online, they are also easy ways for unscrupulous sellers to con you out of your money. Make sure you know the rules before you bid. Get an appraisal before you buy a collectible and use an escrow agent to make sure you collect what you ordered before they collect your money.

When you search for a site at a search engine, you may find more than you were looking for...When adults and children alike search for sites at a search engine, becasue of the way webmasters code information about their sites, you may find many adult-content sites popping up. As adults we might not like this, but our children should be restricted to filtered search engines or prepared for the kind of sites that might come up in an innocent search and be taught how to spot them and avoid them.

Always practice safe computing by using an anti-virus program. Safe computing requires that all attachments, not just those received from strangers should be run through your anit-virus program. (The Melissa Virus worked by making it appear that the message was from a friend.) Your children should be taught never to open an attachment sent by a stranger even after running it through an anti-virus program. But remember that even the best anti-virus program is only as good as how often you update it online.

When communicating with others online, make sure that you and your children use Netiquette. Many cyberstalking incidents and flaming (online fights and harassments) are started inadvertantly becasue the victim didn't know and didn't follow the rules of the chatroom or discussion board. The mother of Netiquette said we should "lurk before we leap." (Lurking is when you listen rather than posting in a chat or discussion board.) I agree. Teach your children to repsect others, and to know that the rules that apply to correct behavior offline apply online too. (For more information about netiquette, check out our netiquette page.)