I love the Internet. I really do. It allows me to communicate with my friends and family around the world. It lets me instantly share pictures and videos of my daughter with her grand parents. It is also pretty great that the Internet provides me with a career. Even though I think the Internet is a great place, I am not foolish enough to think it is 100% perfect.

How to keep our families safe while using technology is just one of the challenges . Enough.org has some shocking statistics on their web site. This is just a small sampling:

- Every second, $3,075.64 is spent on pornography
- 79% of youth unwanted exposure to pornography occurs in the home
- Child pornography has become a $3 billion annual industry
- 20 percent of teens have engaged in cyberbullying behaviors, including posting mean or hurtful information or embarrassing pictures, spreading rumors, publicizing private communications, sending anonymous e-mails or cyberpranking someone.
- 14 percent 7th-9th grade students reported that they had communicated with someone online about sexual things
- 30 percent of teenage girls polled by the Girl Scout Research Institute said they had been sexually harassed in a chat room. Only 7 percent, however, told their mothers or fathers about the harassment because they were worried that their parents would ban them from going online"

Enough Is Enough has developed a program called Internet Safety 101. Holly Hawkins, the Director of Consumer Policy & Child Safety (and one of our very own bloggers ) calls the program "a truly unique teaching series designed to bring Internet safety education into the busy lives of parents and other caregivers." She has witnessed how this program has really empowered parents and teachers regarding online safety.

I am not sure it is ever going to be possible to make the Internet 100% safe for all members of the family - but I do think that through education and empowerment, we can make it a safer place for everyone.

For Safer Internet Day, Canada is marking the occasion with a campaign by The Canadian Centre for Child Protection called The Door That's Not Locked.

One of the disconnects between kids and adults is that kids are being raised with the technology, so it is simply part of their world. Many adults have begun to use technology regularly, but in many cases there is a definitive line between online and offline. The youth are flowing easily between on and offline and in many ways, there is no difference. They are just two sides of the same coin.

The Door That's Not Locked campaign addresses the incorrect perception of some adults that the door is closed to knowing how to protect their kids because they need to know more about the tool than their kids to keep them safe. This comprehensive site is designed to educate teachers and parents with age specific tips and information, regardless of where the starting point is.

Do you feel like you know how to protect your kids and teens online?

I remember when Adam Walsh was abducted. I felt the fear of all the parents around me and it really made an impression. What made an even bigger impression on me is how his father, John Walsh, reacted. He took every parent's worst fear and turned it into an organization to help all the parents whose worst fears have been realized. He paved the path to legislative changes to help missing children and his non-profit merged with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, where he is still on the board of directors.

While the Walsh family has my highest respect, the worst part about his story is that the services are needed. I hope that you will never have a need for these services. If I am wishing for things, I would wish that there was not a need for their services. Since there is a need – I am proud that AOL has been partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in many ways for more than 10 years.

Two services available on AOL that can help locate missing kids are:

Alerts: You can sign up to be alerted when an AMBER Alert is sent in the zip code of your choosing. These alerts notify you of a missing child in the area, so you can watch for them. As you know, the missing piece of information can come from anywhere. Alerts can come via e-mail, text message to your cell phone or via Instant Message.

Updated Notifications: You can include a widget for local missing children in your area by going to your local MapQuest page. If you can provide any information about any missing child, you can call the toll-free number 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).

The National Center's web site is full of information about protecting kids. I encourage you to check it out.

Common Sense Media recently posted a great article citing Norton's top 100 searches done by kids.

Of the top 100, I was not at all surprised by what was searched, but I have to admit that I was quite surprised how highly ranked some of the search terms were - especially 'sex' and 'porn'.

There are things you can do to help mitigate your child getting to search results that are not age appropriate. The article mentions several and AOL Parental Controls can also help.

This article made me think. Thankfully, my daughter isn't old enough for the computer, but I am not sure how I would react if I discovered she was searching on these terms. Now that you read their article - what (if anything) will you change about your online habits at home?

It's hard to believe that the past 10 years have flown by so quickly.

When looking at the Internet's road from 2000 to 2010, it is amazing how much has changed. In 2000...

• -- Google existed (it started in 1996), but was hardly a verb in the American lexicon.
• -- If you wanted to share your home videos, YouTube wasn't an option until 2005.
• -- Social Networking was happening via profiles, online chat rooms and message boards, but "Social Networking" didn't happen until the middle of the decade. Now people have multiple social networking sites.
• -- In 2000, media was defined as the newspapers, broadcast news and other forms of "news" we always knew. During this decade there was a new media created, Blogs. There are several blogs that are considered equals to the traditional media. There is even a woman named 26th most influential woman in media, who got there by blogging. That's it. Blogging. According to Wikipedia, as of 2007 there were 112,000,000 blogs.
• -- Speaking of Wikipedia - it didn't exist until 2001. It is a free encyclopedia that is created by anyone who wants to contribute to it. Because anyone can contribute or edit any article, it is hard to use it as a soul source of information - but it is generally a good place to start. In my circle of friends it is considered enough of a source to settle an argument.

With the good comes the bad. Before 2000, there was never a report of cyberbullying nor sexting. These are relatively new terms that brought online worlds crashing into our "offline" lives. We, as parents, have learned that our children don't see the distinct difference between online and offline like we do. This has changed the focus of parents slightly. Luckily the basics of parenting are still true.

Everything Internet related changed so quickly in this decade that I wonder what the world will be like in another 10 years. Do you have any predictions?

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requires prior parental permission before a company can collect any personally identifiable information online about a child 12-years-old or younger.

The law dictates what counts as "personally identifiable" and companies work within this law. There is a recent controversy about the collection of children's chat discussions through parental control software. I will note that not all parental control software collects this information. For example, AOL's Parental Controls does not track what a child says, only where they go and with whom they communicate with via AOL mail and AIM.

Assuming the risk of exposing personally identifiable information is gone, what are your thoughts about parental controls collecting information from chat to sell to advertisers?

According to this article from examiner.com, the top five social networking sites (based on number of users) are:
MySpace (263 Million users)
Facebook (250 Million users)
Friendster (90 Million users)
Tagged (70 Million users)
Bebo ( 40 Million users)

Do you know all of these sites? Do your teens? Do they have profiles on any or all of them?

In the spirit of National Cyber Security Month, take some time to learn about the top social networking sites you don't already know about. Then talk about what you find with the whole family.

I've posted before about where education about online safety comes from, saying that it comes from all sources including schools, online, friends and parents. Here are some tips about discussing the topic of online safety with your kids.

Twitter, the 140 character long blog site, has some new tools that you might or might not know about. The one that caught my eye is Where.com's GPS Twitter. This is part of where.com, not twitter.com. When it is used, it tells you from where (via GPS in the cell phone) a tweet was posted. For use by adults, this could be useful. If your teen is likely to try something new like this, be sure they are aware what it means to be able to be found.

Having friends and family know where you are is one thing, but quite another if it is someone you don't know or don't want to know. Hopefully this is good information for you to know what is out there. Since teens aren't using Twitter as much as adults, so this may not be anything to worry about for your family. But as the Internet evolves, new functionality like this gets shared over many sites.

What do you think about this feature? Could it help your family keep track of where everyone is?

Neilsen reports that kids (age 2 - 11) are spending more time online than ever before. Parents, educators and online companies are trying to make sure that the time kids spent online is not harmful.

Schools spend a lot of time, money and effort keeping the students from freely searching the Internet. One common way to prevent kids from accessing unapproved sites at school is to use a firewall. A firewall allows or blocks certain sites from being accessed within the school's network. This article from the Washington Post suggests that the firewalls used in schools are like the Great Wall of China; much effort is put into blocking loopholes while students are busy searching for ways around them. To quote a colleague, it's like playing 'wack-a-mole'. As soon as you knock one down, another loophole is already found.

What are your thoughts about using filters in schools? Is it worth the game of 'wack-a-mole' to have the filters in place on school computers? Do you have another idea?

Common Sense Media conducted a survey of teens to find out how their online lives were affecting their 'real' lives. A lot of the results are not all that surprising, but some gave me something to think about.

Not surprising: Social networking is a big part of teens' lives. Surprising: 22% of teens say they check social networking sites over 10 times per day.

Not surprising: Parents and children agree the Internet is helping their academic career. Surprising: 16% of teens admit to posting false information or lies about other people and 24% of teens signed into someone else's social networking site without the owner knowing about it.

They also have several suggestions on how parents can help, including:

• Talk often about life in the digital world and what it means to be a safe, smart digital citizen: remind kids that online posts can last forever, and that potentially anyone can see them. If they wouldn't put something up in the hallway in school, they shouldn't post it on their pages.

• Get yourself an account: see for yourself how your kids' online world works – it'll be easier for you to understand what they're talking about.

• Make sure your kids set privacy settings: they aren't foolproof, but they're important

• Set rules for what they can and can't say, post, and play online: the bottom line – posts with drugs, drinking, sexual posing or activity will come back to haunt them. If they wouldn't say it to someone's face, they shouldn't post it.

What tips do you have about social networking?

According to this article from TechCrunch, teens know about Twitter, but don't use it because it "doesn't feel safe".

From the article: "The way my friends and I see it, Facebook is a closed network. It's a network of people and friends that you trust to be connected to, and to share information like your email address, AIM screen name, and phone number. You know who's getting your status messages, because you either approved or added each person to your network."

I knew that Twitter didn't appeal to teens. The statistics noted in the article say that only 4.4% of Twitter's visitors are under 18. I just didn't know why. Reading this both confuses me and gives me hope.

All the messages that parents, teachers and industry folks such as myself, are excited to see evidence that teens do know about online safety and are taking a proactive role to be safe. On the other hand, there still seems to be a misconception about online safety, what is and isn't private, and what information is available to those who know the tricks.

For example, I am a pretty active user on Facebook. Just this week I learned that Facebook is letting advertisers use your picture in their advertising. This is something that you can opt out of, but finding out that it is happening so you can choose to opt out of it is another issue. This is just one more example showing that information online is not always as private as you thought it was.

There is hope. Teens have the desire to be safe while online. And generally they are doing their due diligence and practicing safe behaviors. We still have work to do, but I see this as good news.

By the way, there are instructions linked in the article telling you how to opt out of the Facebook practice of using pictures in ads, in case you are interested.

Safety doesn't always mean protecting against something physically dangerous. Sometimes it is just being careful about things you may not know about at all. This Switched article outlines several ways you might be breaking the law with your technological gadgets. Some may be a surprise to you.

There are a few that are not surprising at all; taking nude pictures with the cell phone, for example. Talking on the phone or texting while driving, even though it was never a good idea, is illegal in many states and cities.

Other ways to break the law with technology made me stop and think.

Part of growing up in America is testing out different looks, different personas and styles. Everyone goes through an "awkward" phase (at least one) when trying to find your own sense of fashion, personality and really defining what you want to portray to the world.

The online world is one place that teens can experiment with who they are with a small sense of anonymity. While participating in sports communities, you can be the rough and tough sports enthusiast. While on the technology sites, you can embrace your inner techno-geek. Keeping in touch with friends on the popular social networking sites is easy to be the easy-going, carefree person you know you are. The photo you post as your avatar/profile picture can show off any style you can imagine.

Your online persona isn't a private dressing room though – it is public. This can be great, but it can also be detrimental.

We know that 20% of teens say they have been solicited online. A new study shows that the more provocative the online persona, the higher the chance of being solicited. This makes perfect sense. Sexy images (even those that are animated) or using sensual language sends a message that you are looking for a sexual relationship.

While you can use profiles and the Internet to try out new personality traits, make sure they are traits you actually want to portray. Remind yourself of the tips to keeping safe online and think about how people who don't know you might see you.

There are three main sources for teens to get information:

-- Parents / Teachers
-- Friends
-- Media

How do parents make sure their teens get a good education on the very important topic of online safety?

John Walsh has long been an advocate for kids and teens keeping safe. He partnered with Cox Communications to help teens get good information. During the National Teen Summit on Internet and Wireless Safety, Walsh emphasized the point that so many are making, education is the key.