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Adults must impose the necessary checks and balances to keep children safe online, says the children's commissioner for Wales.

"All children and young people don't seem much of a distinction between their online and offline lives,"

Mr Towler told BBC Radio Wales. "It's all just one thing and they get really excited by the opportunities the internet affords and sometimes parents get a little scared about that and worried about what their children are accessing." 'Crossing the road' Continue reading the main story “Start Quote They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones ” End Quote Keith Towler Children's commissioner Mr Towler said he talks to children in lots of different settings and they "still enjoy playing outside as much as they ever did". He said we need to recognise that the internet provides fantastic opportunities for education and learning and its making sure that children access that safely. He said that was a real challenge for parents and carers. "It's a bit like crossing the road, you try to teach your children the best way of crossing the road well. We need to teach our children the best way of using this fantastic resource. "I think too many parents are very very scared of the internet and because they're so scared they will say 'Oh I don't understand it'". Handheld computers The commissioner also praised Hwb, the virtual learning environment, which he said provides protection for children using the web in schools. Mr Towler said: "We've got to get parents and carers to recognise that children do operate in the digital world. They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones. "They can access whatever they want whenever they want and parents need to engage on that. " "We need to remember that children and young people are much more savvy than sometimes we think they are, and they are much more responsible than sometimes adults think they are so its not all doom and gloom. "What we need to do is put the right checks and balances in place and what children always want from parents and carers is to understand what the boundaries are, and that's our job to do that." Sangeet Bhullar, executive director of Wise Kids, added that the digital landscape was "evolving rapidly" and up-to-date data was needed on how children and young people in Wales related to it. More on This Story .related-links-list li { position: relative; } .related-links-list .gvl3-icon { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; } Related Stories Web safety lessons urged for infants 05 FEBRUARY 2013, EDUCATION &amp; FAMILY Online chat 'should be monitored' 22 JANUARY 2013, TECHNOLOGY Body to promote digital teaching 22 JUNE 2012, WALES $render("page-see-also","ID"); $render("page-newstracker","ID"); Related Internet links Children's Commissioner for Wales The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites $render("page-related-items","ID"); Share this pageShare this pageShareFacebookTwitter Email Print In association with $render("advert","advert-sponsor-module","page-bookmark-links"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); More Wales stories RSS Army base shuts in defence shake-up An Army base in Pembrokeshire is to close with 600 troops transferred to St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Soldiers' conman jailed three years Wales recall Warburton and Jones <!--

technology puts adverts on the web, is against the public interest.

It is sad that huge and well-resourced companies are buying up the market share of others instead of building up their own capacity

Google holds information about the private activities of its users that the intelligence agencies would die for

Comment is free The internet comes of age Older people are using the web as never before.

Silver surfers, defined as internet users over the age of 65, spend more time on the web (42 hours a month) than any other group,

A lot of older people still do not realise that once you have fixed up a broadband connection (which admittedly can be dodgy with some service providers) it is very easy to buy or sell things on the auction space eBay (the most popular one in the UK); to buy a book from Amazon or the wonderful abebooks; or to Google or email.

The internet has always revolved around social networking, but the explosion of a fresh generation of communal sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook is taking the phenomenon into new and unchartered territory.

One of those applications called iLike - pigging-backing on Facebook's global network - has already attracted more than 6 million members, and is growing by 1 million every few days, making it one of the fastest growing companies of any kind ever

A new generation accustomed to instant networking, and unashamed about living more of their lives online, is bound to change the organisations they work for and maybe the way they are governed, or at least the way their governments communicate with them

Some time later this month we are expecting the European commission to decide how it will proceed with its investigation of the search giant Google, following the latter's submission of proposed remedies at the end of January over allegations that it has engaged in a range of anticompetitive practices.

Google is a global company and its activities will require a global solution.

Google's global revenues were £23.5bn in 2011. Those are its revenues before tax, although Google's approach to tax is another and equally interesting story. Those vast revenues do not come from those who search, but from those who bid to place advertisements alongside the search results. This means that Google has a clear interest to arrange the rankings in a way that maximises its profits and faces a stark conflict of interests when it does so. It has every incentive to demote other companies, who might actually be offering answers or services that are more relevant to the user queries, and to advance its own services.

When I joined, five years ago, it was because I wanted an easy way to check on whether my journalism students were correctly spelling the names of classmates they were quoting in their news stories. To this day, that's pretty much my peak Facebook experience.

Founded by Zuckerberg and several other Harvard students in 2003, the site laboured for several years behind MySpace, the social-networking phenomenon of mid-decade

Indeed, Zuckerberg himself gave away the game back in January, telling a live audience that if he had it to do over again, he never would have allowed users to keep their information private.

A new study has found that two thirds of single people ‘social media stalk’ before agreeing to go a date.

There have also been countless accounts in recent years of people not being able to even get a job because of a negative online identity prejudicing the interviewer.

as digital communication can be easily misconstrued

The death of Web 2.0 is nigh…

The death of Web 2.0 is nigh… Our lives were changed by Web 2.0 platform technology, but according to an industry watcher its days are numbered

Our lives were changed by Web 2.0 platform technology, but according to an industry watcher its days are numbered

Spotify, the popular music subscription service, is due to meet in the coming weeks with its major counterparts in the record industry to renew their licensing agreements. The Verge has learned that managers at Spotify are expected to ask for substantial price breaks from the music labels as well as the rights to extend its free pricing tier to mobile devices.

The Stockholm-based Spotify has already started negotiations with Warner Music and will begin talks with Sony and Universal in the coming weeks, according to several music industry sources. (A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment on this story.) These negotiations with music’s "big three" labels will likely go a long way to determining whether Spotify reaches profitability, a crucial threshold as it increasingly competes with Apple and other cash-rich players in the digital music market.