Barriers Are Increased for Users of MySpace

Jan 16, 12:05 PM

MySpace, the largest U.S. social-networking Web site, has agreed with attorneys general of 49 states to take new steps to protect children from sexual predators on its site.

It has also agreed to lead a nationwide effort to develop technology to verify the ages and identities of Internet users, officials said.

The agreement is the latest attempt by law enforcement officials nationwide to shield children from online dangers, including the risk of encountering inappropriate sexual content or receiving sexual advances through sites like MySpace and Facebook. The sites allow any Internet user to create a profile to display personal information and build networks of friends online.

Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, announced the deal at a news conference in Manhattan on Monday along with a MySpace executive and Roy Cooper, the attorney general of North Carolina.

Blumenthal said the voluntary agreement went further than the one struck in October between New York's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, and the Facebook Web site.

"It's stronger, broader, a very significant step or even a milestone in making the industry aim higher to keep kids safer," Blumenthal said.

He cited steps in the new agreement to separate children's profiles from those of adults and to seek ways to verify users' ages - steps that he called for after the Facebook agreement, when he and Cooper had said that stronger measures were needed.

The most important new measure, Blumenthal said, was that MySpace would create and lead a task force to find ways to verify ages and identities online. The task force, which will receive input from competing sites, child protection groups and technology companies, will report back to the attorneys general quarterly and issue recommendations at the end of this year.

Facebook, in its agreement with New York prosecutors, promised to respond more speedily to complaints about sexual messages and to warn users in stronger language that the site could not guarantee children's safety.

The new agreement with MySpace, signed by 50 attorneys general - the top prosecutors of the District of Columbia and every state except Texas - includes similar provisions.

MySpace will install safeguards requiring an adult user to prove he or she knows a child user to contact that child. Profiles of users under 18 will automatically be set to "private," preventing casual browsers from seeing them.

Parents who do not want their children using the site will be able to submit their children's e-mail addresses to MySpace, which will prevent users of those addresses from creating profiles. MySpace will identify and remove pornographic images and links to pornographic sites from its Web site.

But none of these measures are foolproof, Blumenthal said. Children can create new e-mail addresses that their parents do not know about; adult strangers could obtain enough information about children to get past the site's safeguards; pornographic links spring up as fast as they are removed.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2008 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. Barriers Are Increased for Users of MySpace
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