There are two things that responsible parents can do to protect your children on-line.
First and foremost: GET RID OF AOL. In case some of you don't understand what I just said, allow me to repeat myself: GET RID OF AOL. Although there are other internet service providers that offer chat rooms and instant messaging, AOL is by far the most popular among teens. Indeed, I cannot ever recall reading about a case such as this that involved an ISP other than AOL. No wonder AOL is the apparent ISP of choice for cybercops looking for kiddie perverts.
Second, Learn to track you kids' on-line activities. There are literally dozens of files on your computer that keep track of on-line activity if you know where to look. Tell your kids that you are looking and that they had better not stray beyond the parameters that you have set, and then do it.
I do not have AOL on my computer and I have told my daughter exactly why I'll never install it on any computer that I own. (Although there are lots of reasons, I focus on the perverts.) About three weeks ago, my daughter hosted a sleep over. Two days after all the girls went home, I snooped around some computer files and discovered that they had accessed AOL online through the ISP that I use. I asked my daughter why she was using AOL when I told her not to, and she said she wasn't using it. Her response proved very clintonesque because while she technically wasn't using AOL, she was sitting in a chair next to her friends as they accessed AOL through my ISP. For violating the household prohibition regarding AOL, my daugher lost all on-line privideges, including e-mail, for a month. For lying like Bill and Hill Clinton, she has lost the right to attend the next sleep over
Agreed! No kids are immune from predators like this one!
We have 3 computers here at home. NONE, I repeat, NONE are in any of the kids' rooms where the door can be shut. They're all in the open where we parents monitor everything they do. I also thoroughly examine the history log of the browser as well to double-check and make sure they haven't seen anything they're not supposed to see when I'm in the bathroom or changing laundry ;-).