Protect Your Child Online

There are any number of ways to find someone online.  The problem that arises during most of these searches is if it’s the right someone.  It’s hard to tell from a Facebook profile or a Google search if you’re on the right track.  Is this the predator you’re looking for?

Finding Someone Online by Location

Trying to locate a specific person online to ascertain that they are who they say they are is enough to make you want to smash the computer and force your child to learn to use a typewriter.  The open rebellion and technical problems this would involve preclude this option, but there are times when it’s nice to think about.

The first question you have to ask about someone questionable your child is chatting with is whether they are whom they say they are.  The second is if they are where they say they are.

Doing Your Own People Search the Long Way

Today’s teenager is not going to be online without a profile on some social networking site or other.  Therefore, your first step in verifying a person is to start searching the social network yourself to see if you can find him/her.  A negative result will not be conclusive, but it will be telling.

Regardless of your result on the above step, the next step is to try to locate this person.  If you have found them on a site, you can check to make sure this is the person you and your child think it is and work outward from that.

How to Find Someone Quick and Easy

There is a lot of data out there and keeping your child safe online may be better served by consigning your effort to find someone to a data retrieval site.  Find someone online with as little as a first and last name.  The more information you have, the better, though.  An online data research works as a one-stop-shop to questions you have about anyone.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 9:00 am and is filed under Child Safety Tips, Online Child Safety Tips . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.