Several of the local TV news stations gave the story below a bit more detail including the fact that if you were under 18 along w/ the age verification the parent would have to be given access to their child's site. I have not seen any details on how this would be done but in his news conference, Blumenthal declared that "there is no excuse, the technology exists".
More to come as the legislature has hearings scheduled on the proposed law today.
A series six of well publicized MySpace sexual predator cases in CT has kept the issue and MySpace in the general public eye and in the educational world over the past year or so. One case had a 31 year old posing as a teenager using MySpace to arrange meetings. He raped at least 7 underage users (the youngest known was 14). Blumenthal who has a good rep as an AG with a activist bent for using his office in consumer protection, child welfare, etc. He is not afraid to use his office and get involved on the legal side of issues in the public eye.
In some ways he may be right in his anger at MySpace in particular. I checked in at MySpace after they announced they had put increased safety measures in place after an earlier case about 2 years ago. I was not so impressed. I thought that another service - Xanga had developed more visible and more intuitive controls for their entries especially their "footprints" feature that lets you see info about who is looking at your site, the ability to require a person to be signed in to Xanga as a user to view your site, and the ability for the user to rate their content as adult, where only people who choose to verify their age (via a credit card check, I think) can read it. I have seen some 3rd party stuff that works w/ MySpace to see who is looking at your site, but I saw nothing really clear on their site last time I looked.
--------------------
Blumenthal, Lawmakers Want Age Verification Rules For Myspace.com
--------------------
By SUSAN HAIGH
Associated Press Writer
March 7, 2007, 12:33 PM EST
HARTFORD -- Connecticut officials unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require MySpace.com and other social networking web sites to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent before minors post profiles online.
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 networking 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 from parents to post profiles 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.
A call seeking comment was left with a MySpace.com spokeswoman.
The bill, which is scheduled for a public hearing on Thursday, would apply to any organized online networking organization, including chat rooms.
MySpace.com, which has become a lightning rod for warnings about online sexual predators, purports to be the largest social networking Web site, with more than 100 million registered users. The site lets users post photos, blogs and journals. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.
No comments:
Post a Comment