MySpace Faces New Age Verification Bill

(AP)  Connecticut state lawmakers unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require MySpace.com and other social-networking sites to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent before minors can post profiles.

The bill comes a day after a man was sentenced to 14 years in prison for using MySpace.com to set up a sexual encounter with an 11-year-old Connecticut girl. It was one of the first federal sex cases involving the popular site.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who met with other attorneys general on Tuesday, said 10 to 20 other states are considering similar legislation.

"The technology is available. The solution is financially feasible, practically doable," he said. "If we can put a man on the moon, we can check ages of people on these Web sites."

Under the proposal, any networking site that fails to verify ages and obtain parental permission of users under 18 would face civil fines up to $5,000 per violation. Sites would have to check information about parents to make sure it is legitimate. Parents would be contacted directly when necessary.

MySpace did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The bill, which is scheduled for a public hearing on Thursday, would apply to any organized online networking organization, including chat rooms.

Parents, school administrators and law-enforcement authorities have been increasingly warning of online predators at sites like MySpace, whose youth-oriented visitors are encouraged to expand their circles of friends through messaging tools and personal profile pages.

The site has responded by expanding educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement. It also adopted new restrictions on how adults may contact the site's younger users and has helped design tools for identifying profiles created by convicted sex offenders.

The site's current policy bars children under 14 from setting up profiles. Users who are 14 or 15 can display their full profiles — containing hobbies, schools and any other personal details — only to people already on the teen's list of friends. Others see only the bare-bones profile, listing username, gender, age and location.

But MySpace relies on users to specify their age.

News Corp.'s MySpace is the largest social-networking site, with more than 100 million registered users.

[klingon69]

passerby;
Now you know that giving a child a good-oldfashioned butte-whipping is now considered child abuse.

Complexities;
Like many good ideas, it looks good on paper, but will be a joke in real life. Just like every other thing that govt seems to want to do, they throw out the "To protect our children" motto, then blame the innocent.
Like blaming the gun companies because some gang members kill each other. Blame the tobacco companies because some indigent (who was never forced to smoke) develops lung cancer, heart problems and/or emphysema...etc. And can't afford treatment.

Start putting the blame on the one(s) responsible, and make them face the music for their various nerfarious activities.

[truth_reason]

I agree with the age varifaction but also belive that parents should be more responsible. If your kid is leaveing the house and is under the age of 16, alone then you (as the parent) should be ashamed of yourself. It all falls down to parents doing there jobs right.

[passerby2]

these law makers, do not think things through. they just want to make it seem like they're actually working, so they come up with these pseudo laws to get public approval from anyone who agrees with them. What 12 and 13 year old kid, talks to a stranger about sexually explicit things and then goes out and meet the stranger? How are they even getting out of the house? If you asked me, I'd say these kids need good old fashion butte wooping.

[billpl-2009]

yet another stupid useless law

[complexities]

I think this is an excellent idea and wonder why it's taken so long for some real action to help protect our children.

Age and ID verification are very simple. Credit card companies do it all the time. Keep in mind, these agencies have to more identifying information than what is publicly available.

I wonder if those against this bill have any idea how easy it is to track a person on the internet? It's so easy, it's frightening. Last year, my daughter was approached by a pervert. With just one piece of information, his cell phone number, I was able to find his real name, age, where he lived, whom he lived with, his marriage/divorce info, etc. I also knew what kind of house he lived in, how many bedrooms, bathrooms, total rooms, garages, basements, fireplaces, pools that it had, and that it was a split-level house. I found this info in only a matter of minutes.

How do you block a website when the url is given to the child in a chat room? Blocking is great, but you have to know the url in advance to do it. Tell the child to not put her name, age, city, school, etc. on her profile. No problem. Just check her friends' profiles. If they give out the info, then your child's info is out there, too. Couple that with friends giving out your child's name and activities in the comments, and your child is very easily trackable.

Even when the parents and child are following all the guidelines, the child is not safe as it is now. At least this bill is a start.

[silver9991]

This is ridiculous. If it were remotely possible for me to take time off tomorrow I'd go up to the public hearing (it's in my state) and put in my two cents.

I belong to several small-scale social networking sites. Yes, these sites are in existence for other focus points than social networking (writing, history, etc.) but social networking is inevitable in such situations. They're not profit makers. One hit from one liar will put them under.

And, prove age via drivers licence? Not everyone has a drivers licence, and how are you going to verify that the drivers licence or whatever ID used belongs to the individual accessing a site?

This is incredibly stupid, and will destroy a lot of good constructive work those smaller networking communities have built up over the years without any serious problems.

There are better ways to protect our young.

[random_radar]

How will this change anything? If parents give permission, then the child is in like Flynn and available for luring to destruction. Getting parental permission doesn't protect kids, especially when naive parents are clueless.

The solution is the same with or without an assinine law: parents need to monitor what their children are doing. If eleven year old Suzy starts sneaking out to meet people, it is a bad sign no matter where she found them.

I keep the computers in the living room so that it is hard to do anything secret. And I pay attention to what they are doing on the Internet. I would never let my children have a computer with Internet access in their bedrooms. End of story.

[TerrieDiaz]

what good is passing a bill going to do when all the kid has to do is lie about their age like so many are doing now. Parents need to put the computers in the family room and limit useage of the internet unless a parent is there. there are ways of doing this with password protection. and there is programs that can be bought to block sites that you don't want your child using.

[hypnotoad72]

That's not to be avoiding of the underage kid problem, of course... parents ought to be more responsible and use the firewall's capability to block or monitor sites... (that's a free hint that would cost you $100 at the national chain store who wouldn't care about you either way...)

[hypnotoad72]

I'm more worried about the spread of malware such as viruses, worms, and trojanhorses through that little site.

When will Rupert Murdoch, owner and therefore the one most responsible, do something to fix that little problem?