Sexual grooming of children also occurs on the Internet. Some abusers will pose as children online and make arrangements to meet with them in person. Facebook has been involved in controversy as to whether or not it takes enough precautions. Jim Gamble, leader of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) of the United Kingdom, stated in April 2010 that his office received 292 complaints about Facebook users through the year of 2009 yet "None of these complaints came direct from Facebook." A spokesman for Facebook responded to complaints by meeting Ceop directly in person, and saying, adamantly, "We take the issue of safety very seriously."
In 2003, MSN implemented restrictions in their chat rooms purportedly intended to help protect children from adults seeking sexual conversations with them. In 2005, Yahoo! chat rooms were investigated by the New York State attorney general's office for allowing users to create rooms whose names suggested that they were being used for this purpose. That October, Yahoo! agreed to "implement policies and procedures designed to ensure" that such rooms would not be allowed.
Some vigilante organizations use operatives posing as underage teens on the internet to identify potential child molesters and turn the information over to the police and the courts. The news program Dateline NBC features the recurring segment "To Catch a Predator", based on documenting such activities.
Multiple computer programs have been developed to help identify grooming and warn parents. Such software analyzes chat room and other Instant messaging logs for activity that may identify grooming or other potentially suspicious activities. Some of the technologies have been adapted to social networking services and ISPs.