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AGs push for increased safety on Myspace.com
Arizona Capitol Reports Staff//January 18, 2008
Terry Goddard and 49 other attorneys general have entered into an agreement with social networking giant Myspace.com to continue the push for enhanced safety measures meant to protect children from online predators and pornography.
Goddard hailed the agreement as a “victory for child safety on the Internet,” and a “milestone in collective efforts by Arizona and other states to tackle Internet safety issues.”
As part of the agreement, Myspace.com, owned by Fox Interactive Media, will form the Internet Safety Technical Task Force and invite other social networking groups, technological experts, and child protection groups to cooperate with the project.
Myspace.com also has agreed to develop “private” default settings for the profile accounts of 16- and 17-year-old users, to commit more money to review and classify photos and discussion groups, and to allow parents to prevent their children from using e-mail addresses to open Myspace.com accounts.
The social networking site also will strengthen age-verification technologies, make it harder for unknown adults to contact children and obtain regularly updated lists of pornographic Web sites in order to sever their links from Myspace.com.
Fox Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam sent a statement thanking the attorneys general for a “thoughtful and constructive conversation on Internet safety,” calling the issue an “industry-wide challenge.”
The Internet Safety Technical Task Force will report quarterly on its efforts and issue a formal report by the end of 2008 to the executive committee of attorneys general, according to Goddard’s press release.
