In 1998, Congress passed the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act to protect kids who are using the Internet from aggressive marketing techniques. In a nutshell, commercial web sites that target children cannot collect personal information from kids under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent.

While this law creates a tool for greater parental involvement, unfortunately, compliance isn't guarranteed for every site. The global nature of the Internet means you need to discuss online privacy with your children.

The Federal Trade Commission has compiled some guidelines that you should share with your kids; the key elements are as follows:

1. Never give out your last or family name, your home address or your phone number in chat rooms, on bulletin boards, or to online pen-pals.
2. Don’t tell other kids your screen name, user ID or password.
3. Surf the Internet with your parents. If they aren’t available, talk to them about the sites you’re visiting.
4. Remember that Websites must get your parent’s permission before they collect many kinds of information from you.
5. If a website has information about you that you and your parents don’t want it to have, your parents can ask to see the information – and they can ask the website to delete or erase the information.
6. Sites are not supposed to collect more information than they need about you for the activity you want to participate in. You should be able to participate in many activities online without having to give any information about yourself.
7. If a site makes you uncomfortable or asks for more information than you want to share, leave the site.