Beside surfing the Web, a good deal of a child's time online may be spent communicating and interacting with others. With the establishment of family guidelines, your child can have a safe and fun time participating in this new Internet community. With a little awareness and preparation you can minimise the risks involved with letting your child interact with others online. Table of Contents Answers Chat Messenger Email Groups Message Boards Personal Web Pages Answers Communicating with other people through Yahoo! Answers can be fun and is part of the service the product offers. But posting detailed information about yourself online can also create the potential for uncomfortable or dangerous situations. Empower yourself to be safe on Yahoo! Answers with these tips. More valuable information about online safety is in the additional resources. Never post your full name, phone number, address, or other personal information online. In other words, don't post information that could help a stranger find you. Create a nickname that doesn't reveal your personal information. For instance, skyrocketjohn is an acceptable nickname. janedoe16nyc is not. Be honest about your age when you register online. It may be tempting to pretend you're a different age. But this is potentially dangerous for you. Some areas of Yahoo! Answers are age-restricted for your protection. Don't lie about your age during registration. For your safety, don't write your age in the "About Me" section or otherwise give it out, even in your nickname. Think about the content you post and what you share with the public. Content can be live for a long time online, so be sure you post content you'll be proud of now and down the road. Be careful about meeting someone in person whom you've met only online. Online, people don't always tell the truth about who they are. If someone you've met only online wants to meet up in person, tell a parent or other trusted adult. Take action against bullying and harassment. Yahoo! Answers empowers you with the "report abuse" link to bring any offensive content to our attention. This is discussed in the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines. And, of course, do not bully or harass other Yahoo! Answers members. Treat others as you'd like to be treated. Follow the Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines. Back to Top Chat We cannot overstate the popularity of chat among most children - expect that your child will participate in chats at some point during their online experience. Whether an exclusive chat with an entertainer, an informative chat with a scientist, or just a group of people talking, your kids will find compelling discussions on Yahoo! Chat at any time of the day or night. It's extremely important for your kids to avoid giving out personal information to people they meet in a chat room. This, too, cannot be overstated. Regardless of how much fun they're having, they simply cannot be sure of who they are talking to. The only way people in chat rooms can find out who (and where) you are is if you tell them. It's also important that your child act appropriately within chat rooms. Most chat areas have clearly stated rules and guidelines for what is appropriate; failure to follow the rules may result in negative responses from other users and, ultimately, a loss of privileges. It is possible that your child might be subjected to inappropriate language in a chat room. If this occurs, your child has several options. The easiest solution is to leave the chat room, thereby ending the offending individual's ability to interact with your child. Yahoo! Chat also gives you the option of ignoring specific chatters, as well as using a language filter in order to reduce the risk that your child will see offensive language. If the behaviour persists each time your child goes to a particular chat room or encounters a specific person, you can report the problem. Yahoo! Chat is an example of an unmoderated chat. If you're not comfortable having your child in this environment, you can turn to a moderated chat room. Created for children, moderated chats allow young people to communicate in a safer environment - preventing people from interacting inappropriately with or manipulating personal information from the children. Although it's not common for inappropriate messages to be sent if a chat is moderated, if there are any problems an email to the moderator will usually take care of the offender immediately. Our Yahoo! US sister site provides a directory just for children called Yahooligans! Chats listed in Yahooligans! are moderated and specifically designed for children. For a more in-depth discussion of acceptable chat room behavior and how to deal with problems that may arise, check out the Yahoo! Chat help section. Should you or your child find offensive messages directed at them from other chat members, report these abuses and/or simply remove your child from that particular chat room. Back to Top Messenger While you may have spent hours on the phone chatting with your friends, your child could very well spend hours chatting with his/her friends using Yahoo! Messenger. Online pagers, or instant messaging systems, allow users to send instant messages back and forth. Very handy for school projects, your kids can even host a "conference," which allows several children to send messages simultaneously. As always, you should instruct your child not to share their messenger ID with just anyone or post their Yahoo! ID in a public place. Yahoo! Messenger will block messages sent to your child if the sender is not on your child’s friend’s list. To report any offensive messages directed and you or your child please write to us and we will take the appropriate action as per our Terms of Service. For a more in-depth discussion of acceptable messenger use and how to deal with problems that may arise, check out the Yahoo! Messenger help section. Back to Top Email Email can be a safer way for your child to communicate with others. Yahoo! Mail will not sell or rent your child's email address (or any yahoo.co.uk email address) to marketers or other companies. If your child receives inappropriate messages or material, or is being "spammed" (receiving unsolicited messages from a person or organisation), there are a few steps you can take to deal with the matter. First, let your child know that he/she is not to blame. (You don't want them to be afraid to tell you the next time it happens!) Second, do not respond to the message. (You don't want whoever sent the email to know that it reached an actual person.) Instead, try to track down the company or ISP from which the message originated, and report the inappropriate correspondence. For additional help on how to deal with other elements of spamming, see Yahoo! Mail's help section. Moreover, you can block messages coming from a specific email address by setting up a filter to direct any messages from that address directly into your mail's Trash folder. To report any email abuse please write to us. For a more in-depth discussion of acceptable Yahoo! Mail use and how to deal with problems that may arise, check out the Yahoo! Mail help section. Back to Top Groups Groups allow people with similar interests to interact in focused online forums. Group members have the ability to post messages, take part in chats, send email messages to one another, and even post pictures. This aggregation of communication features allows for a great deal of interaction among participants. Obviously, you and your child need to be diligent about protecting personal information. While your child might feel as though he/she is a true friend with another member of a particular group, they still need to refrain from giving out personal information. Although they might trust their online friends, it's up to you to explain that not everything you see online is what you actually get. Yahoo! Groups also offer members the ability to post messages under aliases, or to hide their email addresses. We encourage you to have your child use these features to protect his/her identity and prevent random contact with people they do not know. Yahoo! Groups also allow users to create unlisted private groups. This allows anyone 13 or older to set up groups for themselves, friends, and classmates that will be hidden from others. (Assuming that your child is not yet 13, you will need to act as the founder for your child's group.) As a founder of a group, you can also delete messages or members for any reason, although we encourage you to report any offensive language, content, or behavior. As with other Internet community/communication tools, Yahoo! Groups has an established set of rules that users must follow. Your child should follow these rules when interacting in clubs or he/she could lose their privileges. Should you or your child find offensive messages or pictures directed at them from other group members or posted in a particular group, report these abuses and/or simply remove your child from that particular group. For a more in-depth discussion of acceptable Yahoo! Group use and how to deal with problems that may arise, check out the Yahoo! Groups help section. Back to Top Message Boards Message boards generally list the username of the person who posts a message. Therefore, we encourage you to create an alias for your child so that their true name is not visible on any posted message. This helps to prevent unwanted email replies from random people who're interested in responding directly to posts by your children. Your child should understand that Yahoo! Message Boards are a very public forum and anything posted there has the potential to be viewed by a great number of people. It is extremely important not to include any personal information in message board postings. (In other words, absolutely no names, email addresses, phone numbers, or home addresses should be posted on a message board!) Your child should also refrain from inappropriate language on the message boards. Abuse of this rule may result in their loss of posting privileges. If you or your child discover inappropriate postings, or if you become the subject of abusive postings from other Yahoo! Message Board users, please notify us. For a more in-depth discussion of acceptable Yahoo! Message Board use and how to deal with problems that may arise, check out the Yahoo! Message Board help section. Back to Top Personal Web Pages Geocities makes it very easy for you and/or your children to make a personal web page. This might be a family page, one for a child, or even a family pet. While personal web pages are a great way to share information about your family, hobbies, or other interests, there is no way to control who will see the site. Placing your child's name, picture, address, school, phone number, or other information on the Internet means that anyone visiting the site could easily identify your child and possibly locate them. For this reason, limit the amount of personal information about your children on any web site. To report any abuse found on a Geocities site please write to us and we will take the appropriate action as per our Terms of Service. Back to Top