Abstract: A method and system for on-line monitoring of electronic communications include automatically monitoring text-based communications of one or more chat room or instant messaging participants to determine if a monitoring event has occurred. A monitoring event can be, for example, the combined existence of certain defined factors associated with a particular exchange relating to, for example, the exchange's participants, content, recent history, and/or tone. The existence of a monitoring event can result in one or more predetermined actions being taken by the system. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, on-line communications are continually monitored and input to a number of pattern recognizing modules, preferably working in parallel.