The internet is a great place to explore, but the sad fact is that some people do abuse the freedom to cause harm. Chat rooms are also great fun, but you must remember not to share personal information with anyone you chat to.

People in chat rooms are not always who they say they are, and you wouldn't hand over your personal details to a complete stranger in the street - so the chat room should not be any different.

Each piece of information you share with someone in a chat room - such as an address, the name of your school or a phone number - could help someone find out personal things that you might want to keep private.

Safe, not sorry

The newspapers are full of scary stories about 'grooming' and 'internet abuse', and these things do occur on the internet, but in most cases they are very rare.

Don't let your fear of what might happen, stop you or your child enjoying the benefits of the chat room.

Yahoo Chat Page

Learning more about the internet can help you work out what online safety measures you can take to protect your family's security.

There are alterations you can make to your browser to improve chatting safety, and you can also buy software that 'filters' the internet and only allows websites with appropriate content to be seen.

We have provided some advice for both young people and parents, but the ten golden rules for safe chatting apply to everyone: