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MySpace to Fight Online Predators

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 January 2008, 06:00 CST

MySpace, the Internet equivalent of the coffee bar that never closes, has agreed to take steps to make it more difficult for sexual predators to find child victims through its site.

At a news conference Monday in New York City, N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and attorneys general from across the country announced an agreement with the popular social networking site that they hope will serve as a template for others.

The agreement, nearly two years in the making, includes a promise by MySpace to help develop tools to verify the ages and identities of its users, a measure that advocates argue will prevent underage children from setting up profiles on the site and keep predators from gaining the trust of young users by posing as people they're not.

"We're joining forces to find the most effective ways to keep young children off these sites and to protect the kids who do use them," Cooper said. "This agreement sets a new standard for social networking sites that have been quick to grow but slow to recognize their responsibility to keep kids safe."

MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., claims to have more than 200 million registered users worldwide. Other changes the company said it has made or will make in the coming months include:

--Allowing parents to submit their children's e-mail addresses so MySpace can block anyone at those addresses from setting up a profile on the site.

--Setting the profiles of its younger users automatically to "private," preventing anyone the users don't know in the real world from contacting them in the cyber one.

--Creating a closed "high school" section for users younger than 18.

--Better monitoring to find and expunge inappropriate pictures or video from the site and to prevent links to pornographic Web sites.

--Dedicating resources to educating children and parents about online safety.

--Creating a task force on safeguarding children online.

After the announcement, the director of corporate communications for Facebook, a competing site, issued a statement on behalf of that company as well.

"Facebook has always created an inhospitable environment for predators by limiting access to users' personal information based on real-world social connections," said Brandee Barker, director of corporate communications. "We are happy to work further with the states to develop and deploy strategies to protect kids online."

Last year, the N.C. General Assembly tabled a law that would have required MySpace and other social networking sites that operate in the state to find a way to verify its users' ages. The company lobbied against the law.

Even as this agreement was announced, there was disagreement over that issue; the attorneys general said the technology already exists, while Hemu Nigan, chief security officer for MySpace, said it does not.

Doug Reeves, a professor of computer science at N.C. State University, said he knows of no reliable means of verifying such information. Currently, he said, online vendors rely on the combination of an e-mail address and credit card number. "But there is nothing reliable that says what your age or your address or your gender is," Reeves said. "So it's quite easy to falsify that."

Reeves said he could see a number of other potential problems with the new security measures. One is that MySpace would have to find a way to make sure that the addresses it's supposed to use to keep underage users off its site are coming from the users' parents, and not from someone maliciously trying to keep legitimate users from being able to post profiles. Another flaw, he said, is that underage users could just get new e-mail addresses to establish profiles.

Kevin West, special agent in charge of the Computer Crimes Unit for the State Bureau of Investigation, said what's most significant about the agreement is that it involves a big player in the realm of networking sites and could prompt others to join the effort.

West said his agents, and those who work with them in local agencies across the state, could use the help.

Since his unit was created in November 2003 with four agents, it has expanded to 13 agents who are overwhelmed with cases, nearly all of which involve people trying to sexually exploit children they meet online.

Four years ago, West said, predators found most of their victims through chat rooms. Now, nearly all have profiles on MySpace, Facebook or some other social networking site.

Last year, West said, his unit investigated 63 cases in which people traveled or said they wanted to travel to meet a child they had contacted over the Internet to have sex.

Just last week, Buncombe County authorities arrested a 36-year-old Cary man on a charge of soliciting sex with someone he thought was a child.

Whatever policies MySpace and other sites employ, West said, the best protection is a parent's or guardian's careful attention.

"I tell my daughter," West said, "'Don't chat with anybody online that you don't know physically.' "

Source: The News & Observer

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