Detective offers tips on keeping children safe on social Web sites.

Byline: Andrea Damewood The Register-Guard

A note to parents: If your child has been on the Internet all day and there's no record of the Web sites he or she visited, it's time to talk.

If the acronym "POS" - parent over shoulder - flits across an instant message, a little concern is in order, Eugene police Detective Steve Williams told about 15 members of the Kelly Middle School parent teacher organization Monday night.

Williams, who specializes in computer crimes, said trying to block a child's access to social networking Web sites such as MySpace.com may backfire. "If you put controls on your computer, kids will find their way around it," he said. "They're very creative."

Williams said instead of blocking his own teenage children from popular Web sites, he keeps the computer in an open area, has created his own MySpace account and maintains open communication.

School counselor Trisha Dellinger invited Williams to speak to help educate parents about the site that is often discussed in the media.

But details remain largely unknown to the 30-plus set: All of the parents at Monday's meeting knew about MySpace, but none had their own profiles.

While some said they bar their children from chat rooms and social Web sites, most said they try to keep a close eye on Internet activity.

"There is one computer, and it's in our family room," said Tammi Brown, who has a seventh-grader at Kelly and a sophomore at North Eugene. "If I sit down and I ask them to show me their MySpace, they'll show me."

MySpace.com allows anyone who claims to be 14 or older to create a profile, in which they can post pictures and include their last name, address, phone number and even list a description of their body type.

Profiles of those over age 16 are available for anyone to view, making it fairly easy for a stranger to locate a child, Williams said. MySpace profiles can be restricted to friends-only viewing, but most are open to the public.

Usually, predators do not randomly target a child who posts personal information online, Williams said. However, predators will single out those who respond to advances, he said. Often, the child may not know they are talking with someone who is a predator.

"You can be anybody," Williams said. "I can put myself on MySpace and say I'm a 14-year-old girl from Austin, Texas."

Sixth-grader Miguel Mendoza-Lopez attended the meeting with his father, Angel Mendoza. The 12-year-old said he has a MySpace account to chat with friends who have moved, but he lost his password. Once he gets back on the site, he said he plans to be more careful.

"I never knew that there were people out there who would lie about their age," he said.

The use of social networking sites at school has been a problem since the fall of 2005, Principal Tim Rochholz said. The school, like all those in the Eugene School District, blocks the use of outside e-mail and sites such as MySpace. Computers in the library and in the lab are closely monitored.

Many issues the administration sees today stem from bullying and threatening messages left about students and staff from home computers.

"Anything that happens off campus that comes back and affects the school environment is grounds for consequences," which can range from a talk with the school counselor to a suspension, Assistant Principal Brooke Wagner said. "It's really just a few isolated incidents."

District Instructional Technology Specialist Kim Ketterer said while the Internet can create a distraction, its educational benefits outweigh most of the risks.

"There's so much good on the Internet, we have to be careful about overreacting," Ketterer said. "But we still walk a fine line on how to educate kids to be responsible users."