Tuesday, January 15, 2008

MySpace, States Agree on Predator Shields


by Ken Schachter

In a deal with 49 states aimed at thwarting sexual predators, MySpace said Monday it will tighten its security and privacy standards and step up enforcement of its age minimum of 14.

The deal, announced at a news conference in New York City, calls for MySpace to make profiles of teens aged 14-17 private by default and work to set up an e-mail registry that will let parents block their children from gaining access to MySpace or another social-networking site.

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research, said that the move by MySpace, with 110 million users, likely will force competitors to fall into line.

"You can expect others in that market ... to be likely to be very interested and adopt this same type of outreach," he said.

The voluntary agreement with MySpace, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is expected to heighten pressure on Facebook and other social-networking sites to adopt more stringent controls as well.

Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, the No. 1 social networking site, and Fox Interactive Media, called on its competitors to sign on to the agreement.

"It's time to tell the industry: Step up," he said.

The agreement is the product of negotiations that extended for nearly two years, said Tom Corbett, attorney general of Pennsylvania, who noted that eight of the 27 people charged by the state's child predator unit in 2006 were MySpace users.

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