One area that parents and children overlook when on the Internet is the fact that nothing put on the Internet ever leaves. That means that anything incriminating posted online can be later dug up and used against your child at work, in a divorce or by the government. In this article I will look at three fallacies that impact your child's safety and future.

Fallacy 1

If I delete something, it is gone.

• The delete key removes it from your eyes, however, it still resides on your computers hard drive.
• The only way to remove it forever is to reformat the drive or wait until some other program writes over it on the hard drive.

This is true for everyone's computer, including the MySpace hard drives and backup tapes.

Fallacy 2

If I remove my content from the web, no one can access it anymore.

• Once information is placed on the Internet, anyone can copy it to their computer.
• In addition, the place that stored the information still retains copies on their hard drive.

MySpace says they delete it off the hard drive when requested. My question: do they delete it off their backup copies and everyone's hard drive that copied or downloaded something? I didn't think so...

Fallacy 3

Nobody will want the stuff I put online.

• Pedophiles/sex offenders collect images and stories.
• Pornography sites seek out images and stories to put on their sites.
• Attorneys use this information for litigation
• Employers seeking to fire an employee will search the net and the employee computer for incriminating evidence.
• Disgruntled employees will use past Internet use to incriminate other employees or employers.
• Electronic conversations are used in court cases and government investigations.
• Spouses use this information in divorce cases

Think about this: remembering your high school years, how would you feel if the things you did then were on the Internet in living color for anyone to find? Today, MySpace users post their real and fantasy lives online! Scary, very scary...

As you can see, the "here and now" is not the only issue parents need to worry about. It is the tomorrows we need to protect as well. Protect your children by becoming computer literate and getting educated about online dangers.

Rhonda Goetz

Rhonda Goetz is an author, speaker, an educator, instructional designer, and owner of Chrome Zebra, Inc, an online training course company and ParentSmartz, a parent's child safety site.

She combines the best of business knowledge and learning design principles to create interactive, engaging online courses that positively impact the bottom line and employee moral.

She is an authorized sexual harassment and discrimination prevention trainer and college instructor.

Her online courses provide businesses with an alternate training method that saves time and money. Employees train at their desks or workstations, and can train anytime. Businesses no longer have to lose production time to large training seminars, or hire expensive consultants or be locked into a set training schedule.

She also designs easy-to-use online safety courses designed to empower parents by teaching them to monitor their child's activities, improve their Internet literacy, and better understand the Internet perils their child deals with every day.

Contact Rhonda at 866.241.9927 for more information.