Coming Monday

Anonymity, real or imagined, can give us a false sense of security. That can lead to unconscionable rudeness, as people say things online that they’d be unlikely to say to someone’s face.

And that, some critics say, is what’s wrong with the Internet, especially chat rooms.

“The Internet is still new; it still has kind of a Wild West feel to it,” says Laura Geyer, a volunteer administrator on Ship-of-Fools.com. “We have expectations of how to behave at a party, but not necessarily of how to behave online.

The response is not what you’d get on the street — nobody is going to punch you — but people are likely to say things that they wouldn’t say if they were sitting across from you at the dinner table.”

Learn more about Internet etiquette on Monday’s Business Technology Page.