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"Data is beginning to reveal risks to young people in terms of increased exposure to sexually inappropriate content, contributions to negative beliefs and attitudes, stranger danger, cyberbullying and access to inappropriate content from sites which may promote harmful behaviours," Dr Byron wrote.

"What is clear is that while internet risks can reflect ‘offline’ concerns (eg, bullying) the problems can be qualitatively different and sometimes have the potential to be more damaging. This is due to the nature of the internet, with its anonymity, ubiquity and communication potential."

Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, today accepted all of Dr Byron's recommendations, adding that the Government would act "immediately" to implement the proposals.

Dr Byron reiterated concerns expressed by the Information Commissioner on the amount of personal information young people were making available online, quoting research which suggested that 47 per cent have given personal details to someone they met online.

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The report also concluded that children were highly susceptible to the commercial messages sent out by advertisers, and recommended that the current system for regulating advertising be "future-proofed" so as to take account of new forms of online advertising that were "currently out of its remit".

Internet safety groups welcomed the report, saying any effort to increase awareness and education about the risks associated with using the web was "a good thing", but advised against regulatory measures, saying that the Government should work with the industry to develop standards.

"Laws should be a last resort," said Tony Neate, managing director of Get Safe Online. "I'm a great believer in self-regulation, and if you can get the industry involved and work together to develop codes of practice, that's the best way forward."

Mr Neate added that sites such as YouTube could do more to screen their content when it was being uploaded, for instance by deploying 'filtering' software that could determine the content of an image.

Google, which owns YouTube, said: "Google is deeply committed to protecting children on the Internet and providing all of our users with a safe experience online." It added that YouTube provided users with a mechanism for flagging content they thought was inappropriate, which was then evaluated by an internal review team in accordance with the site's guidelines.

Marc Goodchild, head of children's interactive at the BBC, agreed that there was a lot of inappropriate content on the "millions of unregulated sites" on the web, but said that the solution was not to "turn off" the internet for young people.

"Mollycoddling kids on the web is like saying they can never go to the park to meet their friends without a chaperone," he said. "A better approach is to coach them about the dangers and let them take on more responsibility little by little."

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