NZ dad: 'Wake up, parents'

This is the first teen social-networking story I've seen out of New Zealand. A very candid dad in Christchurch contacted The Weekend Press there to warn other parents, saying "he had been forced to place his daughter under 'house arrest' after she invited a stranger home for sex after meeting him on Bebo.com," Stuff.co.nz reports. He and his wife had arrived home one night to find their daughter with the boy she had invited. He told the paper all he and his wife had been aware of about social networking was that "it was like making a Web site." He told the Press he'd banned his daughter from the Internet and a cellphone, taken her page down, and gotten her counseling and a medical check-up. "Australian research showed that 40% of teens would potentially meet in person someone they had met online, and only 12% would ask their parents' permission to do so," the Press added.