Here are some important things to know about surfing, privacy and your personal information:

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.

Don’t tell other kids your screen name, user ID or password.

Look at a website’s Privacy Policy to see how the site uses the information you give them.

Surf the Internet with your parents. If they aren’t available, talk to them about the sites you’re visiting.

Talk about the site’s Privacy Policy with your parents so that you and your parents will know what information the site collects about you and what it does with the information.

Websites must get your parent’s permission before they collect many kinds of information from you.

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.

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.

If a site makes you uncomfortable or asks for more information than you want to share, leave the site.