By law, online gaming services, as well as chat room providers and other Internet services, must report evidence of enticing a minor for sex to law enforcement. White said most complaints are forwarded to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which then forwards leads to local law enforcement agencies across the country.

Lewd comments and sexual solicitations are not limited to children. Carrie Sewell, a 34-year-old mother in Weber County, likes to play the popular online game World of Warcraft. She said she runs into some strange people online.

"I've had some pretty weird stuff happen to me," she said. "There was one person whose character was running around with no clothes on. Someone asked me if I wanted to buy him as some dominant sex slave."

One online player, when he found out she was really a woman, kept following her character and harassing her. "I just put them on ignore and walk off," Sewell said. World of Warcraft allows players to "ignore" other certain players, which blocks their text messages — essentially putting them on mute.

Sewell has also encountered people who are looking to connect with minors. "There's a lot of people on there that are good at extracting information from kids," she said, which as a mother of a 6-year-old concerns her. She said she thinks what Utah's ICAC agents are doing is a good thing.

"I think it's definitely a good idea because kids don't know any better," she said.

Sewell also said parents need to monitor what their kids are doing online and become familiar with parental controls and filters on computers and game consoles.

White agrees with Sewell. Even with all the parental controls and filtering software out there, bottom line, the best thing parents can do is sit down and talk with their children and be involved in their gaming experience.

"If they're letting their kids play, they should monitor what they're doing," Sewell said. "It's better to just educate them in what not to say to people."

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E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com