Parents, teens advised to guard privacy on social Web sites.

Publication: Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA)

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COPYRIGHT 2006 The Orange County Register

Byline: Jennifer B. McKim

Don't include personal information. Don't upload photos of yourself. Don't talk to strangers.

These are some of the recommendations provided by the FBI to children using MySpace.com and other social networking sites.

As quickly as youths are taking to the Internet, so are child predators heading there to find their next victim, the FBI says.

Ten million youths use the Internet every day, and one in five have been solicited or approached by a child predator, the FBI says. Federal arrests for online sexual exploitation of children doubled from 863 to 1,649 between 2003 and 2005, the bureau says.

"The Internet (is) the single most important tool of child predators," said Peter Brust, FBI special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field office cyber-division. "The computer is making it a lot easier for people to contact kids."

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

Police and the FBI have responded with sting operations. In February, a California Highway Patrol lieutenant was among 13 men charged with attempted child molestation after an Internet sting that authorities called the largest of...

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