If a young person is socially active on the Internet,he or she is very likely managing at least one personal profi le on one or more social-networking sites which require or allow them to publicly divulge something about themselves. While this ability is not inherently bad, there may be people familiar or unfamiliar to them who could take advantage of this.
Behaviors such as online grooming (technique used by a sexual predator to convince an underage person to have relations with them offl ine) and cyberbullying (online harassment of classmates or peers) are some examples of unwanted online contact that parents and care-givers should understand and help young people recognize and act on if they ever experience it. In both cases, the fi rst and best response is to encourage kids not to respond to such messages and to alert their parents so they can fi gure out the next steps together. It’s also a good idea not to delete the messages in case they later need to be used as evidence.
Aggressive commercialism
In addition to unwanted contact, parents and caregivers should be mindful of online messages - sometimes legitimate, sometimes malicious - that entice young people to acquire products or services in exchange for information or money. It is important to be aware of how this type of commercialism is delivered, what is being offered, and what young people may do as a result of it. Vendors are using more creative ways to promote their goods and embed their marketing messages, which may make it diffi cult for a young person to differentiate between an advertisement and the content they are accessing or even interacting with (a technique called immersive advertising). Free offers and promotions for age-inappropriate products and services (dating services, gambling services, etc.) may also be compelling enough to a young person to enter personal information that could later be used by the advertiser to deliver continuous, intrusive advertising (as spam or pop-up advertising) or worse, perpetrate cybercrime (hack attacks, identity theft, etc.).
Covert web threats
Social networking sites are also an increasingly popular place for cybercriminals to trick people into divulging information or downloading software onto their computers for any number of uses. Their methods range from simple to elaborate.
Sometimes a young person will just see an advertisement or link to download seemingly harmless software that they can use on their own social networking profi les, such as a widget, but which in fact has been infected with malicious software that gets downloaded along with the legitimate software. Some applications that run on social networking sites may encourage young people to complete a survey or provide information that might not be appropriate to share with others. Other times, a young person can be lured to see an “attractive” video but is told it is necessary to download a viewer in order to see it. While downloading a viewer is a normal action necessary to see videos online the viewer could be infected with other software that, once installed, can be used by the cyber criminal to steal information from the computer, spy on the activities of its owner, or other uses depending on the type of malicious software installed.
Behaviors toward others
The anonymity of the Internet can unfortunately encourage offl ine bad behavior to continue and be exacerbated online.Young people can be victims as well as participants in behaviors such as cyberbullying and harassment. It is important for them to know that information they post can be accessed by anyone virtually forever and can potentially be traced back to them, so it is best to be respectful of others, online or off. More severe comments, particularly those involving physical threats, may also be considered a criminal offense.
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