Ten golden rules for safe chatting

1. Keep your address, telephone number, and personal information a secret - even if you think you can trust the person you're chatting with.
2. Treat your friends and family's personal information with the same secrecy.
3. Keep your privacy by using a nickname instead of your real name, when you chat or instant message.
4. Avoid private one-to-one chat rooms and stick to the public chat rooms.
5. If you begin chatting to someone on a regular basis, let an adult friend or parent know what you are doing.
6. Let an adult friend or parent know if you receive a rude or unpleasant message via the internet - it isn't your fault that it was sent to you, so don't feel bad.
7. Never meet with someone you know from the internet unless an adult friend or parent comes with you.
8. Check with an adult or parent before sending a picture of yourself via the internet.
9. Treat people online like you'd like to be treated - don't be rude or say nasty things.
10. Enjoy chatting with your friends online, but be careful who you trust.

Check out the BBCi ChatGuide site for more suggestions.

Advice for young people

The internet is full of new and interesting people to chat to, but not everything your read will be true, and not everyone you meet will be who they say they are.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't enjoy yourself on the web, but you should make sure your parents know what you're doing.

If your parents don't know much about the internet, you might want to sit down with them and explain what you'll be doing - otherwise they might get worried and stop you going online at all.

Show them some of your favourite sites, so they know where you'll be visiting.