Texas AG says no to MySpace agreement

On Jan. 14, all but one state attorney general joined MySpace, a division of Fox Interactive Media Inc., in signing an agreement meant to protect young users of the social networking site from online predators. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott declined to sign the joint statement, which sets out principles of social networking related to online safety tools, technology, education and law enforcement. Among other things, under the agreement MySpace will assign users under age 16 private profiles to prevent strangers for obtaining information about them; users over 18 can designate their profiles as private to under-18 users; and over-18 users cannot add under-16 users as friends unless they know the younger user’s last name or e-mail address. But Abbott wrote in a Jan. 14 letter to Chris DeWolfe, MySpace’s chief executive officer, that the Texas Office of the Attorney General does not believe MySpace.com – or any other social networking site – can adequately protect minors until an effective age verification system is available. “Although we believe that MySpace.com, along with other state attorneys general, is working to protect social network users, we cannot endorse any initiative that fails to implement a reliable age verification system.  Doing so would give Texas parents and their children a false sense of security,” Abbott wrote. Parry Aftab, a New Jersey attorney  and the executive director of WiredSafety.org, a children’s Internet safety organization, says MySpace should look at the possibilities for developing an age verification system. But Aftab says she does not think there is a way to have such a system without putting under-18 users at risk. Aftab says age verification requires a database of kids, and that database would be available to hackers. The MySpace agreement is “a beginning,” but it contains broad language, Aftab says. “It doesn’t mean anything until they start acting on it.”
-- Mary Alice Robbins