The main social networking sites active in Europe are signing an agreement on February 2009, the sixth annual Safer Internet Day, committing themselves to "maximise the benefits of the internet while managing the potential risks to children and young people", the European Commission said.

The special focus of the day this year is on cyber-bullying. A Europe-wide communication campaign is being unveiled, along with a video clip on cyber-bullying, one of the most frequent problems young people encounter on the internet.

The European Commission said that Safer Internet Day aims at promoting a safer use of the internet, online technologies and mobile phones, and the fight against illegal or harmful content and conduct.

"Sixty per cent of European parents are worried that their child might become a victim of online grooming (by paedophiles) and 54 per cent that their children could be bullied online," the EC said.

In December 2008, the EU adopted a new Safer Internet Programme for 2009-2013 which dedicates 55 million euro to making the internet a safer place for children, by fighting illegal content and harmful behaviour on the web that could be labelled as racism, bullying or grooming.

The 17 web firms that signed the European agreement to improve the safety of under 18s who use social networking sites include Arto, Bebo, Dailymotion, Facebook, Giovani.it, Google/YouTube, Hyves, Microsoft Europe, Myspace, Nasza-klaza.pl, Netlog, One.lt, Skyrock, StudiVZ, Sulake/Habbo Hotel, Yahoo!Europe, and Zap.lu.

"Social networking sites are an emerging social and economic phenomenon, attracting 41.7 million regular users in Europe and changing the way we interact with each other on the Web. The use of social networks has grown over the past year by 35 per cent in Europe and is expected to more than double to 107.4 million users by 2012," the EC said.

"The Commission applauds this first European agreement on Social Networking. It is an important step forward towards making our children's clicks on social networking sites safer in Europe," said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "Social networking has enormous potential to flourish in Europe, to help boost our economy and make our society more interactive – as long as children and teenagers have the trust and the right tools to remain safe when making new 'friends' and sharing personal details online. I will closely monitor the implementation of today's agreement and the Commission will come back to this matter in a year's time."

The agreement provides for the sites to limit risks by providing an easy to use and accessible "report abuse" button, allowing users to report inappropriate contact from or conduct by another user with one click,making sure that the full online profiles and contact lists of website users who are registered as under 18s are set to "private" by default. This will make it harder for people with bad intentions to get in touch with the young person.

The firms also committed themselves to ensuring that private profiles of users under the age of 18 are not searchable (on the websites or via search engines), to guaranteeing that privacy options are prominent and accessible at all times, so that users can easily work out if just their friends, or the entire world, can see what they post online.

Another commitment is to prevent under-age users from using their services: if a social networking site targets teenagers over 13, it should be difficult for people below that age to register.

Social networking sites will inform the Commission about their individual safety policies and how they will put these principles in place by April 2009.

Media reports said that parents in the UK were more likely to keep abreast of their childrens' online activity and screen them from the dangers of the internet, according to
a study released to mark Safer Internet Day 2009.

The Europe-wide survey found that British parents are most likely to use filtering software (77 per cent) and most likely to talk to their children about what they do online (87 per cent), webuser.co.uk reported.

Thirty-five per cent of teens believe young people do not respect each other's privacy online and more than half (56 per cent) believe that the internet makes it easier to bully.

The BBC reported that the survey, by Microsoft, also suggested that 66 per cent of teens surfed the internet without any restrictions from their parents.

From Athens, Kathimerini reported that three in 10 Greek parents never sat with their children when they surfed the internet, according to a Eurobarometer poll, carried out for the EU.

A key reason for parents' apparent lack of supervision is that they are less technologically savvy than their children, according to computer experts, Kathimerini said.

"Parents are digitally inferior to their children and when they want to help they usually do it in the wrong way; they become overprotective," Yiannis Larios, vice president of the Observatory for the Information Society, said. "Thirty per cent of parents sit by their children or look at the pages they have visited but only one per cent bother to install some kind of filter on their computer beforehand."

An online e-safety toolkit designed to give children, parents and teachers confidence when using the internet was launched in Luxembourg as part of the European Commission's Safer Internet Day. The interactive, web-based toolkit is initially available in five languages and will soon be accessible in many other languages.

The toolkit, which is available at www.esafetykit.net, will be distributed through a range of channels, including local internet safety awareness nodes, Liberty Global affiliates, NGO partners and schools.

It is based on the family toolkit which was developed in 2008 by Insafe and Liberty Global/UPC. The toolkit consists of a comprehensive parent's guide, an activity-based guidebook designed specifically for children between six and 12 years old, stickers, a family certificate and situation cards.

Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, launched the Council of Europe's new online third edition of the Handbook on Internet Literacy, "building on the success of our online game for children Through the Wild Web Woods which will soon be accompanied by teachers' guidelines to explain internet safety and human rights to children."

To mark EU Internet Safety Day, the PSNI and Microsoft have issued tips for parents and children to help make surfing the web safer.

Dympna Thornton, the PSNI's education advisor, said: "We want young people to be aware that the information which they share with others may actually be accessed by a wider audience and viewed by people who are not necessarily friends."

She said following advice "can help to keep them safe and prevent them from becoming a victim of malicious behaviour, crime or fraud".

Police officers and Microsoft workers have been giving 30-minute presentations at UK schools on internet safety.

Among the tips they offer for children using sites such as Facebook, MySpace or Bebo are not to use your real name; never tell anyone personal things about yourself or your family; do not post photos of yourself; do not post photos or videos that you would not be happy for your parents or teacher to see and always keep passwords private.

Children are also advised never to arrange to meet someone they have met online and if contacted by someone they are unsure of, to inform a parent or a forum administrator.

The Canadian Press quoted Signy Arnason of cybertip.ca, a national tip line for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children, advising against posting photos that include any "visual clues" that might indicate where a child lives or goes to school. She said that images that contain licence plates and team jerseys should be avoided.

Media reports from Rome said that child protection organisation Telefono Arcobaleno said that the volume of internet activity connected to the exchange of paedophile content had increased by 150 per cent over the past five years.

Telefono Arcobaleno said that the internet traffic in pictures showing nude minors increased by 400 per cent over the same period, affecting about 3000 children.

As many as 58 per cent of all the pictures with paedophile content originated from Europe, and none of the 3000 children had been identified. About 64 per cent of the photographs depicted children younger than seven.