The new website Chatroulette.com lets Internet users interact with people around the world, but the lack of apparent regulation allows everything from the obscene to the absurd. Technology reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report.

In theory, Chatroulette.com, a social networking website created by a teenager in Russia, seems harmless. Users sit in front of a webcam, click on a "Start" button and are instantly connected for a video chat with a random person from anywhere in the world. If they do not like the conversation or vibe, they can hit a "Next" button and be connected to another random stranger.

Some Internet experts say it is a perfect recipe for online depravity.

"It's everything bad you've ever heard about the Internet in one website," says Dan Ackerman of CNET.com.

Using Chatroulette can be like making a study of the absurd things people will do if given a camera, an audience and complete anonymity. Many of those things are too debauched to show on a cable TV news channel, or its corresponding website. Sorry.

"The big warning about Chatroulette is it's completely unregulated, it's completely anonymous, so you're going to see a lot of adults-only content out there," says Ackerman. "It's definitely not for kids, not for the squeamish. You could have a perfectly nice conversation one minute, hit the 'Next' button, and you're staring at a guy with no pants."

It's not all obscene. Adam Balkin has found that plenty of users use the site as a new type of social networking, even though the website has some obvious filtering issues.

"Dude, I do it for comic relief, but it's not that funny because it's mostly just naked dudes on here," says one user.

"Just meeting new people, talking to people from England, France and Switzerland is cool," says another.

Two users in Cambridge, England participate in a worldwide drinking game, based off of interactions on the sight.

"You see, there are different rules on what you have to drink. For example, one would be we have to guess your age, and for every year we're wrong is an extra finger on our drink that we have to consume," says one Englishmen.

The site does insist that it is for users age 16 and older and that inappropriate use is not tolerated, but there seems to be little if any enforcement. Parents of minors are warned to either block the site or keep the computer in a common area of the house in order to keep an eye on what's going on.