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Well, as a parent of a 12 year old girl, I can say that it is impossible to police all of her actions 24/7. Not only does she get home from school at 2 pm (and I get home from work at 5:30 pm), but she also goes to friends' houses and the library, where she has access to the internet.
I trained her really well though, not to include personal details in her MySpace. So well, that her page said she was 100 years old, living in Everywhereville, USA. Good you say, she was careful, there was no personal info about her anywhere on her page. I have her password to all of her email accounts and to her My Space account. I read her stuff from time to time, just to check. Seems I did a good job, doesn't it?
Til you read her friends' profiles. Her friends all say "I'm so and so and I'm 12 years old in 6th grade at Blah Blah Middle School". They all say they're 18 or 19 in the main part, so their profiles are open to everybody.
So, I wrote down everything I could find out about all her friends and showed it to her. I asked her if she thought I could figure out her real age and where she went to school from that info. She got very upset and immediately emailed all her friends. I had her change her age to 14 so her profile could be friends only. I do know all the kids who are on her friends list.
Most of her friends with My Space pages are also in her Girl Scout troop. I did a meeting on internet safety with them and showed them all the info I could get about them, including some of their pictures. I noted that I could easily sit in a car at their middle school when school got out and note which bus they got on, or follow the bus when it left the school. I pointed out how the bus schedule is posted online. I showed them Google Earth.
Bottom line is, my daughter still isn't 100% safe, despite doing everything I can do as a parent, short of staying in her presence 24/7. It's scary to a parent, even one who IS parenting their children. It's a whole new world, this internet stuff, and it leaves them more vulnerable than ever before. I'm all for any way that makes them more aware. Sadly, most of them have the typical pre-teen/teen attitude of "It won't happen to me", but the reality is, it will happen to some of them.
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