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6-7-2007 New York:
TMI on Myspace |
.Action News tracked down a young CNY girl using her myspace page and showed up at the family's front door. Her parents are stunned to learn how revealing the website can be, and just how easy it is to get personal information from myspace members, and that includes your children. We found that even if someone posts very little about themselves, it does not stop others from learning more. The girl's father could not believe what we learned about his daughter. We learned what school she goes to, what she does in her free time, and who her friends are.
Despite the risk that myspace can be a playground for pedophiles, the postings kids put on myspace and other social networking websites, are getting more and more personal. New York State Police Investigator Todd Grant says, "If you go onto MySpace and see a child that lists certain things like where they go to school, after-school activities, how hard would it be to go to that school?"
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: by Lisa Spitz
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6-5-2007 Pennsylvania:
MySpace needs legal advice in sex offender investigation |
.MySpace filed a request Monday in a Pennsylvania state court asking for guidance as the social-networking service responds to demands for information about convicted sex offenders using the site. In the request, which was filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Dauphin County, home to the state capital of Harrisburg, MySpace said that it is actively seeking advice on how it can legally provide authorities with registered sex offenders' contact information. [[[snip]]]
"Attorney General Corbett has requested we provide the content of e-mail messages of specific registered sex offenders identified by Sentinel Safe," Angus said, referring to the database that MySpace has developed through a partnership with identity verification firm Sentinel Tech Holding. "We want to provide those messages and today have filed a request with the state court in Pennsylvania, asking a judge for guidance on how best to provide the e-mail content without tainting any potential evidence that could help put a registered sex offender behind bars." [[[snip]]]
According to MySpace, a federal court determined that the ECPA requires that a search warrant be issued before the social-networking service turns over the content of e-mail messages sent through the site, and that a positive identification through the Sentinel Safe database would not by itself suffice.
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: by Caroline McCarthy
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6-5-2007 National:
Parolees on MySpace may land in jail |
.Many convicted sex offenders who had profiles on the popular MySpace website are on parole, and some may be sent back to prison for e-mailing minors. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says more than half of the 210 sex offenders from his state who used the social networking site are on parole. One was returned to state custody last week for using the Internet, a violation of a condition of his release.
MySpace's 180 million profiles make it the world's largest networking site. It's popular with teens. Two dozen states have taken legal action to get from MySpace a list of its users who are registered as sex offenders; 21 states have received names and e-mail addresses, says Michael Angus, My-Space's chief counsel.
Pennsylvania has asked for the content of e-mails. MySpace asked a court there Monday to tell the company how to supply such information without violating privacy laws. Blumenthal says Connecticut will request e-mails next week. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says the MySpace data prove that sex offenders prowl the Internet.
She says 48 of the 844 offenders in Illinois who used MySpace are in custody or on parole. Their cases are being reviewed for prosecution. Many paroled sex offenders are barred from using the Internet because it could be used to contact minors.
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: by Wendy Koch
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POLL: After our report on sex offenders having accounts on MySpace, all the pages by the confirmed offenders were either removed by MySpace or the account holder. What do you think about this issue? |
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12-6-2006 Florida:
MySpace shutting out sex offenders |
.MySpace.com claims more than 125 million users, but it is now down by nine. The personal pages of nine local sex offenders Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers recently found on MySpace have been deleted, officials from the popular networking Web site reported Tuesday. MySpace is also looking into more than a dozen other pages found during the investigation that might be linked to local sex offenders.
"We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace," Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace, said in a statement. "Sentinel Safe will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community."
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: by ADAM L. NEAL
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POLL: Do you think that MySpace is dangerous for children and teenagers? |
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12-6-2006 New York:
MySpace Moves To Block Sex Offenders |
.Lots of kids like to log on to MySpace.com. The trouble is, critics say, so do convicted sex offenders. So now, the popular site is taking steps to boot the fiends out. MySpace said it's partnering with a technology firm to build a database. It would have the names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States, making it easier to block convicted sex offenders.
But MySpace said it'll stop short of verifying the ages and identities of the site's users. The database, to be called Sentinel Safe, "will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement.
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: by ClickOnDetroit
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