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Abstract The publicity about online "predators" who prey on naive children using trickery and violence is largely inaccurate. Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape - adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers -- than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting. This is a serious problem, but one that requires different approaches from current prevention messages emphasizing parental control and the dangers of divulging personal information. Developmentally appropriate prevention strategies that target youth directly and acknowledge normal adolescent interests in romance and sex are needed. These should provide younger adolescents with awareness and avoidance skills, while educating older youth about the pitfalls of sexual relationships with adults and their criminal nature. Particular attention should be paid to higher risk youth, including those with histories of sexual abuse, sexual orientation concerns, and patterns of off- and online risk taking. Mental health practitioners need information about the dynamics of this problem and the characteristics of victims and offenders because they are likely to encounter related issues in a variety of contexts.

A proposed U.S. law would require Internet service providers to store information about every user of their services and keep that data for at least two years, in a bid to crack down on Internet-based predators and child pornographers. The language of the law may even apply to owners of home Wi-Fi routers, according to a digital rights attorney. U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Representative Lamar Smith, both Republicans from Texas, held a press conference Thursday to announce separate bills in the Senate and House of Representatives, both called the Internet Safety Act.

Last year, after the social-networking site MySpace found that its members included some 29,000 registered sex offenders, the nation's top state prosecutors demanded a technological fix, asking that the industry "explore and develop age and identity verification tools for social networking web sites." But a new study concludes that such technologies are unlikely to thwart anonymous predators and that the threat facing children online is no worse than it is in the real world.

A simulation