I recently read a Washington Post article, "Virtual Worlds Get Real About Punishment," in which Kim Hart reported that virtual worlds are now establishing self policing systems.  These "self policing" systems allow users to bring other users who misbehave to trial, complete with indictments, court cases and punishments. These virtual worlds have started to use legal codes and justice systems to police their members' behavior!

This is a very interesting development in the online world -- virtual communities setting and enforcing their own laws!  Just as my colleague Stephen Balkam from FOSI said in the article, I too applaud efforts to reduce abusive behavior in virtual worlds.  Now not only are our kids getting into trouble in virtual worlds, but they are also punishing each other in these virtual worlds.  It should be a red flag to parents: they need to be fully aware of what is going on online. As the online world evolves, parents need to keep up with what is happening in order to supervise their kids' online experiences.

Our survey showed that people of all ages are concerned about privacy and safety on the Internet, but when asked if "people can put themselves in danger" on the Internet, the various generations responded with different answers.

*           Almost half (48%) of wired Older Americans age 65 and older strongly agree the Internet can be a dangerous place
*           39% of those age 50-64
*           32% of those age 35-49  
*           21% of those age 18-34 

As part of the survey, we asked the same questions of teens and their parents in the same household and compared answers. We found that 31% of these teens strongly agree the Internet can be dangerous.

These generational gaps are quite revealing. It's interesting that the older the Internet users are, the greater their concern that they "can put themselves in danger."   While Internet users under the age of 34 are the least worried that "people can put themselves in danger on the Internet," they tend to be the age group more willing to post pictures and personal information about themselves online!

Younger Internet users could be unaware that the information they are sharing can have consequences for their personal privacy. In today's digital world it is important to make sure that all generations  do not put themselves in danger. Let's keep the conversation going with our kids - and our parents - about staying safe online. There are many helpful tools available on the web and from our ISPs.  Now is the time to use them.

As a mother, I also thought the numbers below from the 2008 Online Safety Survey were very interesting. When parents and their teens were asked the same questions about monitoring teen use of the computer and Internet activity, there were some discrepancies in their answers.

·        52 percent of parents say they sit alongside their teenager whenever they are online to monitor activity; but only 33% of teens in those same households confirm that

·        51 percent of parents say they visit their teen's social networking site; 30% of teens confirm that

Hmm... the numbers just don't quite match up. It seems that parents may think they are monitoring their teens, but their teens are saying that they aren't monitoring as closely as they think they are.

In the Web 2.0 world we live in, being online is a necessity.  But the results from this survey make me stop and think about what kind of questions this raises. What are the implications of this for consumers?  For society?  When we're online, how do we ensure that we are in charge of the information collected about us and how it is used? Are we even aware that what we put out there- either knowingly or unknowingly- compromises our privacy?