|
MySpace kicks out sex offenders
16/05/2007 08:12 - (SA)
Raleigh, North Carolina - MySpace.com said on Tuesday it will not comply with a request by attorneys general from eight US states to hand over the names of registered sex offenders who use the social networking website.
In a statement, MySpace's chief security officer said state and federal laws prohibit the website from sharing such information.
"We are doing everything short of breaking the law to ensure that the information about these predators gets to the proper authorities," the security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in the news release.
The statement did not specify which laws MySpace would break by handing authorities the information, and a call to the company was not immediately returned.
Sex offender database
In December, MySpace announced it was partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp to build a database with information on sex offenders in the United States.
Software to identify and remove sex offenders from the site has been used for 12 days, and MySpace has "removed every registered sex offender that we identified out of our more than 175 million profiles", Nigam said.
In a letter on Monday, attorneys general from North Carolina, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania asked MySpace to provide the number of registered sex offenders using the site and where they live.
MySpace, which is owned by News Corp, and other social networking sites allow users to create online profiles with photos, music and personal information, including hometowns and education. Users can send messages to one another and, in many cases, browse other profiles.
MySpace's policy prevents children under 14 from setting up profiles, but it relies on users to specify their ages.
- AP
|
