Yahoo! 360°: Recommended Online Safety Practices
Yahoo! 360° is an online community where you can collect text, photos, and video all in one place to share with family and friends. Easy-to-use tools allow you to manage ablog to post your thoughts, upload photos to an online album, and connect to people with similar interests. Yahoo!’s younger users might use these features to create a travel diary of the family’s summer road trip, a daily column about college basketball or a favorite movie star, a list of recommended movies, or commentary about what happened that day at school.
Think of it as a very dynamic and creative personal diary, one you can keep entirely private or share with friends, family, and other Yahoo! 360° users. And Yahoo! 360° lets you control the look of your page without any expertise in web design or special technical know-how.
Have a look at some examples of Yahoo! 360° pages.
To find out in detail how to create a Yahoo! 360° page, share photos, manage a blog, and more, read through Yahoo! 360° Help.
Even better, make your own Yahoo! 360° page and you’ll soon discover why people often get hooked!
What are some risks to my child on Yahoo! 360°?
Yahoo! 360° users are expected to behave in ways that foster community, not harm it – the same expectation we have of people in everyday society. Yahoo! 360° outlines these expectations in its Community Guidelines, which users agree to as part of using Yahoo! 360°. Yahoo! also has Terms of Service that users agree to upon registering for a Yahoo! ID.
Just as there can be risks in the community where you live, participating in the Yahoo! 360° community may pose certain risks to children and teenagers. Yahoo! has incorporated a number safety features within Yahoo! 360°. But as a parent or caregiver, you are expected to take an active role in sharing this responsibility for kids’ online safety, just as you would look out for their well-being on a daily basis in the real world.
We suggest that you start by learning about some general practices for online safety for you and your child. In addition to this general advice, keep in mind these issues when your child is using Yahoo! 360°:
- Protecting personal information. Children under 13 are not permitted to create their own Yahoo! 360° pages. Users between the ages of 13 and 17 may do so, however. Teenagers who use Yahoo! 360° should be reminded that posting personal information or photos, no matter how harmless it might seem, could identify them to strangers. Yahoo! 360°’s privacy preferences can be set to limit contact with these unknown users.
- Harassment. If unknown users are able to contact your child, he or she might be exposed to unpleasant, sexually suggestive, or abusive language. Again, be aware that your child’s Yahoo! 360° privacy preferences can be modified.
- Mature content. Yahoo! 360° users over the age of 18 can post mature content. If these users don’t properly mark adult-oriented photos and text as “mature” in their user settings, your teenager might come across them while browsing other Yahoo! 360° pages. If this happens, we encourage you to report abuse to Yahoo!.
- Impersonation. Someone could impersonate your child by creating a Yahoo! account and Yahoo! 360° page. In pretending to be your child, they could post false information or send damaging emails if they know his or her friends. We encourage you or your child to report such abuse to Yahoo!.
What safety features should I know about to help protect my child on Yahoo! 360°?
To protect younger users from risks, children under 13 are not permitted to create their own Yahoo! 360° pages or establish communication with other Yahoo! 360° users. Instead, they are encouraged to explore age-appropriate content and activities on Yahoo! Kids.
If your child is at least 13 years old and wants to make a Yahoo! 360° page, make sure he or she knows about Yahoo! 360°’s safety features described below. Your child should know how to do the following:
- Use a nickname. A nickname will hide your child’s real Yahoo! user ID and appear on the top of his or her Yahoo! 360° page. A nickname without any personally identifiable information is best. For example, instead of “tedjones1992dallas” try something more generic like “bluesky50”. You can also read more about how to safely choose an online ID.
- Modify privacy settings. By clicking on the “Settings” link in the upper-right corner of your child’s Yahoo! 360° page, his or her privacy preferences can be modified to limit contact with others in the Yahoo! 360° community. If another user establishes contact, your child might be exposed to unpleasant, sexually suggestive, or abusive language. Yahoo! 360°’s privacy settings allow your child to choose who is allowed to contact him or her, send invitations, and see and comment on his or her blog. Different levels of privacy – from completely private, to just friends, to all Yahoo! users – can be specified for each part of your child’s Yahoo! 360° page.
- Delete comments and limit blog access. If someone leaves an unpleasant or inappropriate comment on your child’s blog, these features can be used to remove the offensive comment and limit who can leave future comments. If someone persists in bothering your child, they can be removed as a connection.
- Ignore.Your child can stop contact from a specific Yahoo! 360° user by clicking the “Ignore” link in the left column of his or her Yahoo! 360° page.
- Hide online status. This setting can be used to prevent other users from even knowing that your child is online.
- Use an avatar. An avatar is a made-up cartoon character that can be used as your child’s Profile Photo in the left column of his or her Yahoo! 360° page. This is a safer alternative to posting a real, identifiable photo. Yahoo! Avatars lets your child create a personalized character with any of dozens of hairstyles, clothing combinations, accessories, and backgrounds. Your child can use this avatar in many places on Yahoo! instead of a real photo to avoid giving away to strangers what he or she actually looks like.
- Report abuse to Yahoo!. You or your child can also report any offensive content or inappropriate contact with other users by clicking on the “Report for abuse” link in the left column of every Yahoo! 360° page.
Yahoo! provides a “Report for abuse” link in the left column of every user’s Yahoo! 360° page. You or your child should complete this form any time he or she is exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates Yahoo!’s overall Terms of Service or Yahoo! 360°’s Community Guidelines. Make sure to provide specific information about the location of the offending content and the identity of the user in question.
Yahoo!’s customer care team reviews abuse reports in a timely manner and takes appropriate action, which may include deactivating an account. Reports that indicate activity involving child pornography or solicitation of a minor are dealt with promptly by Yahoo!’s legal team and, where appropriate, reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
What can I do as a parent to help my child use Yahoo! 360° in a safe manner?
Yahoo! is committed to providing a safe online experience for all users and, accordingly, complies with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Yahoo! 360° offers a number of safety features to limit potential risks to its users. However, protecting children and teenagers online is a shared responsibility with parents, teachers, and other caregivers.
We suggest that you start by learning about some general practices for online safety for you and your child. These general practices include the importance of safeguarding one’s identity online, keeping passwords secret, being cautious about contact with strangers, and creating a pledge for online safety.
If your child is exposed to obscene language, mature content, threats of physical violence, harassment, or anything else that violates Yahoo!’s overall Terms of Service or Yahoo! 360°’s Community Guidelines, make sure you or your child reports the abuse to Yahoo!.
In order to limit the chance for such situations to occur, review the safety features on Yahoo! 360° and work with your child to set appropriate Yahoo! 360° privacy preferences.
And remember, Yahoo! Kids has all kinds of age-appropriate content and activities for children under 13!
Ask Other Yahoo 360° Users