Report: Feds probe Internet suicide

[no name 1]

Where was the mother of the 13 year old girl, who (though it's not mentioned in this report but was mentioned in another report on the news this morning, had some sort of mental issues to begin with), while she was supposedly messaging back and forth with a 16 yr olf boy on the internet?

What? Are you her mother?

um, no.

Everyone blames the other mother & yet no wonders what happened to the girl's mother....why wasn't she around?

Well it seems to me that the other woman is being blamed because as a supposedly responsible adult, she (allegedly of course) acted in a very immature and spiteful manner and this was the result. I can't imagine she is to strictly "blame" for the suicide - but bullying aside I think that has to weight on her conscience somewhat.

To be fair its hard to make any reasonable determination on what were the causes and triggers for this suicide. By definition the teenage years are typically when kids start to test their boundaries and distance themselves somewhat from parental authority. I think given that the family has ultimately lost their daughter - the grief of which can really only be imagined (let alone with all the media and public scrutiny over this as an outrage story of the week) I find it rather hard to fault the parents at all.

eh, I think the other mother shoud face punishment of some kind. As for the girl's mom, well, she should've been more aware of what her (obviously fragile) child is doing on a social networking site that can be harsh!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms

Please choose carefully the information you post on MySpace.com and that you provide to other Users. Your MySpace.com profile may not include the following items: telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, and any photographs containing nudity, or obscene, lewd, excessively violent, harassing, sexually explicit or otherwise objectionable subject matter. Despite this prohibition, information provided by other MySpace.com Members (for instance, in their Profile) may contain inaccurate, inappropriate, offensive or sexually explicit material, products or services, and MySpace.com assumes no responsibility or liability for this material. If you become aware of misuse of the MySpace Services by any person, please contact MySpace or click on the "Report Inappropriate Content" link at the bottom of any MySpace.com page.

---

Content/Activity Prohibited. The following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited to post on or through the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communication from the MySpace Services and terminating the Membership of such violators. Prohibited Content includes, but is not limited to Content that, in the sole discretion of MySpace.com:

1. is patently offensive and promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;

2. harasses or advocates harassment of another person;

3. exploits people in a sexual or violent manner;

4. contains nudity, violence, or offensive subject matter or contains a link to an adult website;

5. solicits personal information from anyone under 18;

6. provides any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses;

7. promotes information that you know is false or misleading or promotes illegal activities or conduct that is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous;

8. promotes an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work, such as providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protect devices, or providing pirated music or links to pirated music files;

9. involves the transmission of "junk mail," "chain letters," or unsolicited mass mailing, instant messaging, "spimming," or "spamming";

10. contains restricted or password only access pages or hidden pages or images (those not linked to or from another accessible page);

11. furthers or promotes any criminal activity or enterprise or provides instructional information about illegal activities including, but not limited to making or buying illegal weapons, violating someone's privacy, or providing or creating computer viruses;

12. solicits passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other Users;

13. involves commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes;

14. includes a photograph of another person that you have posted without that person's consent; or

15. for band and filmmaker profiles, uses sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair, misleading or deceptive Content intended to draw traffic to the profile.

The following is a partial list of the kind of activity that is illegal or prohibited on the MySpace Website and through your use of the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, reporting you to law enforcement authorities. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:

1. criminal or tortious activity, including child pornography, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, drug dealing, gambling, harassment, stalking, spamming, spimming, sending of viruses or other harmful files, copyright infringement, patent infringement, or theft of trade secrets;

2. advertising to, or solicitation of, any Member to buy or sell any products or services through the MySpace Services. You may not transmit any chain letters or junk email to other Members. It is also a violation of these rules to use any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to contact, advertise to, solicit, or sell to any Member without their prior explicit consent. In order to protect our Members from such advertising or solicitation, MySpace.com reserves the right to restrict the number of emails which a Member may send to other Members in any 24-hour period to a number which MySpace.com deems appropriate in its sole discretion. If you breach this Agreement and send unsolicited bulk email, instant messages or other unsolicited communications of any kind through the MySpace Services, you acknowledge that you will have caused substantial harm to MySpace.com, but that the amount of such harm would be extremely difficult to ascertain. As a reasonable estimation of such harm, you agree to pay MySpace.com $50 for each such unsolicited email or other unsolicited communication you send through the MySpace Services;

3. covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace.com page via HTML/CSS or any other means;

4. any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;

5. interfering with, disrupting, or creating an undue burden on the MySpace Services or the networks or services connected to the MySpace Services;

6. attempting to impersonate another Member or person;

7. for band profiles, copying the code for your MySpace Player and embedding it into other profiles or asking other Members to embed it into their profiles;

8. using the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or disclosing your password to any third party or permitting any third party to access your account;

9. selling or otherwise transferring your profile;

10. using any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person;

11. displaying an advertisement on your profile, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity on or through the MySpace Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your "Top 8" friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose; or

12. using the MySpace Services in a manner inconsistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations.

One of my wife's friends was bemused after she set up a page for her 1 y/o baby - only to have her account cancelled for being "underage"

Well, they did break the terms.

Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (B) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; © you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.

True - but you can easily get around that if you put your age at 99 years. It's pretty silly really - as noone's really obligated to tell the truth online. There are sites where you have to enter your birth date to view trailers for M-rated video games - but that's token. At best. Even if you're age 11 - there's nothing to stop you putting in that you're age 55, and given the number of accounts - very small likelihood that the admin will catch you out.

[no name 1]

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms

Please choose carefully the information you post on MySpace.com and that you provide to other Users. Your MySpace.com profile may not include the following items: telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, and any photographs containing nudity, or obscene, lewd, excessively violent, harassing, sexually explicit or otherwise objectionable subject matter. Despite this prohibition, information provided by other MySpace.com Members (for instance, in their Profile) may contain inaccurate, inappropriate, offensive or sexually explicit material, products or services, and MySpace.com assumes no responsibility or liability for this material. If you become aware of misuse of the MySpace Services by any person, please contact MySpace or click on the "Report Inappropriate Content" link at the bottom of any MySpace.com page.

---

Content/Activity Prohibited. The following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited to post on or through the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communication from the MySpace Services and terminating the Membership of such violators. Prohibited Content includes, but is not limited to Content that, in the sole discretion of MySpace.com:

1. is patently offensive and promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;

2. harasses or advocates harassment of another person;

3. exploits people in a sexual or violent manner;

4. contains nudity, violence, or offensive subject matter or contains a link to an adult website;

5. solicits personal information from anyone under 18;

6. provides any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses;

7. promotes information that you know is false or misleading or promotes illegal activities or conduct that is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous;

8. promotes an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work, such as providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protect devices, or providing pirated music or links to pirated music files;

9. involves the transmission of "junk mail," "chain letters," or unsolicited mass mailing, instant messaging, "spimming," or "spamming";

10. contains restricted or password only access pages or hidden pages or images (those not linked to or from another accessible page);

11. furthers or promotes any criminal activity or enterprise or provides instructional information about illegal activities including, but not limited to making or buying illegal weapons, violating someone's privacy, or providing or creating computer viruses;

12. solicits passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other Users;

13. involves commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes;

14. includes a photograph of another person that you have posted without that person's consent; or

15. for band and filmmaker profiles, uses sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair, misleading or deceptive Content intended to draw traffic to the profile.

The following is a partial list of the kind of activity that is illegal or prohibited on the MySpace Website and through your use of the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, reporting you to law enforcement authorities. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:

1. criminal or tortious activity, including child pornography, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, drug dealing, gambling, harassment, stalking, spamming, spimming, sending of viruses or other harmful files, copyright infringement, patent infringement, or theft of trade secrets;

2. advertising to, or solicitation of, any Member to buy or sell any products or services through the MySpace Services. You may not transmit any chain letters or junk email to other Members. It is also a violation of these rules to use any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to contact, advertise to, solicit, or sell to any Member without their prior explicit consent. In order to protect our Members from such advertising or solicitation, MySpace.com reserves the right to restrict the number of emails which a Member may send to other Members in any 24-hour period to a number which MySpace.com deems appropriate in its sole discretion. If you breach this Agreement and send unsolicited bulk email, instant messages or other unsolicited communications of any kind through the MySpace Services, you acknowledge that you will have caused substantial harm to MySpace.com, but that the amount of such harm would be extremely difficult to ascertain. As a reasonable estimation of such harm, you agree to pay MySpace.com $50 for each such unsolicited email or other unsolicited communication you send through the MySpace Services;

3. covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace.com page via HTML/CSS or any other means;

4. any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;

5. interfering with, disrupting, or creating an undue burden on the MySpace Services or the networks or services connected to the MySpace Services;

6. attempting to impersonate another Member or person;

7. for band profiles, copying the code for your MySpace Player and embedding it into other profiles or asking other Members to embed it into their profiles;

8. using the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or disclosing your password to any third party or permitting any third party to access your account;

9. selling or otherwise transferring your profile;

10. using any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person;

11. displaying an advertisement on your profile, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity on or through the MySpace Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your "Top 8" friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose; or

12. using the MySpace Services in a manner inconsistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations.

One of my wife's friends was bemused after she set up a page for her 1 y/o baby - only to have her account cancelled for being "underage"

Well, they did break the terms.

Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (B) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; © you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.

True - but you can easily get around that if you put your age at 99 years. It's pretty silly really - as noone's really obligated to tell the truth online. There are sites where you have to enter your birth date to view trailers for M-rated video games - but that's token. At best. Even if you're age 11 - there's nothing to stop you putting in that you're age 55, and given the number of accounts - very small likelihood that the admin will catch you out.

True. But the terms clearly say you cannot impersonate or lie. The admin (logically) needs to cover their own butts.

[Alhamdulillah 0]

Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (B) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; © you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.

According to this, it seems the girl in the story shouldn't have had an account herself if she was only 13 years old. MySpace may not wish to be involved for fear that her parents could sue them as well.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Where was the mother of the 13 year old girl, who (though it's not mentioned in this report but was mentioned in another report on the news this morning, had some sort of mental issues to begin with), while she was supposedly messaging back and forth with a 16 yr olf boy on the internet?

What? Are you her mother?

um, no.

Everyone blames the other mother & yet no wonders what happened to the girl's mother....why wasn't she around?

Well it seems to me that the other woman is being blamed because as a supposedly responsible adult, she (allegedly of course) acted in a very immature and spiteful manner and this was the result. I can't imagine she is to strictly "blame" for the suicide - but bullying aside I think that has to weight on her conscience somewhat.

To be fair its hard to make any reasonable determination on what were the causes and triggers for this suicide. By definition the teenage years are typically when kids start to test their boundaries and distance themselves somewhat from parental authority. I think given that the family has ultimately lost their daughter - the grief of which can really only be imagined (let alone with all the media and public scrutiny over this as an outrage story of the week) I find it rather hard to fault the parents at all.

eh, I think the other mother shoud face punishment of some kind. As for the girl's mom, well, she should've been more aware of what her (obviously fragile) child is doing on a social networking site that can be harsh!

I think its hard though - unless you have a really close relationship with your kid, but even then when you hit the teenage years those things are under strain anyway. I remember keeping secrets from my parents, telling lies (where I went, with who, what I did etc) - I think most kids do at that age. Parents can't be there all the time - and with the internet being such a new (well relatively new) technology how you regulate what kids do on the internet is a bit of an unknown quantity - given that many kids are more tech savvy than their parents.

Ultimately of course, I do wonder whether we can really say anything about this incident that hasn't already occurred to the girls parents. As I say, I can't even imagine how they feel.

[Alhamdulillah 0]

eh, I think the other mother shoud face punishment of some kind. As for the girl's mom, well, she should've been more aware of what her (obviously fragile) child is doing on a social networking site that can be harsh!

The neighborhood woman, Lori Drew, has denied creating the account but acknowledged being aware of it. She also has denied sending any messages to Megan or being aware of the unkind messages.

What should she be punished for? For making the same mistake as the other mother and not being aware what her child was doing on the internet?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.terms

Please choose carefully the information you post on MySpace.com and that you provide to other Users. Your MySpace.com profile may not include the following items: telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, and any photographs containing nudity, or obscene, lewd, excessively violent, harassing, sexually explicit or otherwise objectionable subject matter. Despite this prohibition, information provided by other MySpace.com Members (for instance, in their Profile) may contain inaccurate, inappropriate, offensive or sexually explicit material, products or services, and MySpace.com assumes no responsibility or liability for this material. If you become aware of misuse of the MySpace Services by any person, please contact MySpace or click on the "Report Inappropriate Content" link at the bottom of any MySpace.com page.

---

Content/Activity Prohibited. The following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited to post on or through the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, removing the offending communication from the MySpace Services and terminating the Membership of such violators. Prohibited Content includes, but is not limited to Content that, in the sole discretion of MySpace.com:

1. is patently offensive and promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;

2. harasses or advocates harassment of another person;

3. exploits people in a sexual or violent manner;

4. contains nudity, violence, or offensive subject matter or contains a link to an adult website;

5. solicits personal information from anyone under 18;

6. provides any telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, URLs or email addresses;

7. promotes information that you know is false or misleading or promotes illegal activities or conduct that is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous;

8. promotes an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work, such as providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacture-installed copy-protect devices, or providing pirated music or links to pirated music files;

9. involves the transmission of "junk mail," "chain letters," or unsolicited mass mailing, instant messaging, "spimming," or "spamming";

10. contains restricted or password only access pages or hidden pages or images (those not linked to or from another accessible page);

11. furthers or promotes any criminal activity or enterprise or provides instructional information about illegal activities including, but not limited to making or buying illegal weapons, violating someone's privacy, or providing or creating computer viruses;

12. solicits passwords or personal identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other Users;

13. involves commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes;

14. includes a photograph of another person that you have posted without that person's consent; or

15. for band and filmmaker profiles, uses sexually suggestive imagery or any other unfair, misleading or deceptive Content intended to draw traffic to the profile.

The following is a partial list of the kind of activity that is illegal or prohibited on the MySpace Website and through your use of the MySpace Services. MySpace.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who, in MySpace.com's sole discretion, violates this provision, including without limitation, reporting you to law enforcement authorities. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:

1. criminal or tortious activity, including child pornography, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, drug dealing, gambling, harassment, stalking, spamming, spimming, sending of viruses or other harmful files, copyright infringement, patent infringement, or theft of trade secrets;

2. advertising to, or solicitation of, any Member to buy or sell any products or services through the MySpace Services. You may not transmit any chain letters or junk email to other Members. It is also a violation of these rules to use any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to contact, advertise to, solicit, or sell to any Member without their prior explicit consent. In order to protect our Members from such advertising or solicitation, MySpace.com reserves the right to restrict the number of emails which a Member may send to other Members in any 24-hour period to a number which MySpace.com deems appropriate in its sole discretion. If you breach this Agreement and send unsolicited bulk email, instant messages or other unsolicited communications of any kind through the MySpace Services, you acknowledge that you will have caused substantial harm to MySpace.com, but that the amount of such harm would be extremely difficult to ascertain. As a reasonable estimation of such harm, you agree to pay MySpace.com $50 for each such unsolicited email or other unsolicited communication you send through the MySpace Services;

3. covering or obscuring the banner advertisements on your personal profile page, or any MySpace.com page via HTML/CSS or any other means;

4. any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;

5. interfering with, disrupting, or creating an undue burden on the MySpace Services or the networks or services connected to the MySpace Services;

6. attempting to impersonate another Member or person;

7. for band profiles, copying the code for your MySpace Player and embedding it into other profiles or asking other Members to embed it into their profiles;

8. using the account, username, or password of another Member at any time or disclosing your password to any third party or permitting any third party to access your account;

9. selling or otherwise transferring your profile;

10. using any information obtained from the MySpace Services in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person;

11. displaying an advertisement on your profile, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity on or through the MySpace Services on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on your profile, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose as one of your "Top 8" friends, or sending private messages with a commercial purpose; or

12. using the MySpace Services in a manner inconsistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations.

One of my wife's friends was bemused after she set up a page for her 1 y/o baby - only to have her account cancelled for being "underage"

Well, they did break the terms.

Eligibility. Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (B) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; © you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.

True - but you can easily get around that if you put your age at 99 years. It's pretty silly really - as noone's really obligated to tell the truth online. There are sites where you have to enter your birth date to view trailers for M-rated video games - but that's token. At best. Even if you're age 11 - there's nothing to stop you putting in that you're age 55, and given the number of accounts - very small likelihood that the admin will catch you out.

True. But the terms clearly say you cannot impersonate or lie. The admin (logically) needs to cover their own butts.

Of course - but like a lot of these kinds of disclaimers they're pretty pointless at the end of the day.

You can see how lax these things are in how many Myspace accounts exist for celebrities - there's pages worth of Orlando Bloom's and Keira Knightly's - anyone you care to look up.

[no name 1]

True. But the terms clearly say you cannot impersonate or lie. The admin (logically) needs to cover their own butts.

Of course - but like a lot of these kinds of disclaimers they're pretty pointless at the end of the day.

You can see how lax these things are in how many Myspace accounts exist for celebrities - there's pages worth of Orlando Bloom's and Keira Knightly's - anyone you care to look up.

They are not pointless when it comes to something like this. They are legal disclaimers. You think myspace doesn't have a huge legal team?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

True. But the terms clearly say you cannot impersonate or lie. The admin (logically) needs to cover their own butts.

Of course - but like a lot of these kinds of disclaimers they're pretty pointless at the end of the day.

You can see how lax these things are in how many Myspace accounts exist for celebrities - there's pages worth of Orlando Bloom's and Keira Knightly's - anyone you care to look up.

They are not pointless when it comes to something like this. They are legal disclaimers. You think myspace doesn't have a huge legal team?

Oh I'm sure they do - I'm just questioning whether a legal disclaimer is of any practical use. People can and do lie - there's no proof of age required other than the person's word, and Myspace is so large that if you do it there's little likelihood you will be found out. All it does is make the cover the site's butt from a lawsuit - then again, internet law is still embryonic in a lot of ways, so whether these "protections" hold up at the end of the day is far from guaranteed. I mean youtube runs afoul of copyright law everyday for the content its users upload to it, really in much the same way Napster did.

Incidentally - Myspace has some interesting rules that essentially take automatic ownership of any unlicensed creative work you choose to put on there. So if you post your unpublished novel on there, for example, you're essentially ceding ownership of that content to Myspace. As far as I know there hasn't been a test case against that as yet - but I can certainly see a Class Action scenario if they tried to enforce it.

[no name 1]

Oh I'm sure they do - I'm just questioning whether a legal disclaimer is of any practical use. People can and do lie - there's no proof of age required other than the person's word, and Myspace is so large that if you do it there's little likelihood you will be found out. All it does is make the cover the site's butt from a lawsuit - then again, internet law is still embryonic in a lot of ways, so whether these "protections" hold up at the end of the day is far from guaranteed. I mean youtube runs afoul of copyright law everyday for the content its users upload to it, really in much the same way Napster did.

Incidentally - Myspace has some interesting rules that essentially take automatic ownership of any unlicensed creative work you choose to put on there. So if you post your unpublished novel on there, for example, you're essentially ceding ownership of that content to Myspace. As far as I know there hasn't been a test case against that as yet - but I can certainly see a Class Action scenario if they tried to enforce it.

That's why it pays to read the fine print!

Incidentally, myspace is owned by Fox so the legal team is in theory, huge.

[Amby 490]

When I first read the story a few months ago I'm pretty sure it said that the girl's mom at first wouldn't allow her to have a Myspace account and then after lots of talking about it and such she allowed her to have an account but she had the password and checked the account frequently

[no name 1]

MySpace, states move to block sex offenders

ALBANY, New York (AP) -- MySpace has reached an agreement with more than 45 states to change to help prevent sexual predators and others from misusing it, state officials said Monday.

Several states' attorneys general said in a statement that the huge social networking Web site has agreed to add several protections and participate in a working group to develop new technologies, including a way to verify the ages of users. Other social networking sites will be invited to participate.

MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., will also accept independent monitoring and changes the structure of its site.

The agreement was announced in Manhattan by attorneys general from New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

"The Internet can be a dangerous place for children and young adults, with sexual predators surfing social networking sites in search of potential victims and cyber bullies sending threatening and anonymous messages," said New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram.

Legal authorities have long been seeking greater controls for networking sites to prevent predators from using them to contact children.

"We thank the attorneys general for a thoughtful and constructive conversation on Internet safety," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a written statement. "This is an industrywide challenge, and we must all work together to create a safer Internet."

He said the agreement includes measures "to provide a safer online experience for teens, and we look forward to sharing our ongoing safety innovations with other companies."

Among other measures, MySpace agreed to:

# Allow parents to submit children's e-mail addresses to MySpace to prevent anyone from misusing the addresses to set up profiles.

# Make the default setting "private" for 16- and 17-year-old users.

# Respond within 72 hours to complaints about inappropriate content and devote more staff and resources to classify photographs and discussion groups.

# Strengthen software to find underage users.

# Create a high school section for users under 18 years old.

Investigators have increasingly examined MySpace, Facebook.com and other sites where people post information and images and invite contact from other people.

New York investigators said they set up Facebook profiles last year as 12- to 14-year olds and were quickly contacted by other users looking for sex.

The multistate investigation of the sites -- announced last year -- was aimed at putting together measures to protect minors and remove pornographic material, but lawsuits were possible, officials said.

source