Online sex offenders tracked

[Al-khiyal]

SAN FRANCISCO, California, May 15, 2007 -- Top prosecutors in eight US states have asked MySpace to expose convicted sex offenders who have posted their profiles on the youth-oriented social networking Web site.

The state attorneys general Monday sent the News Corporation-owned Web site a letter saying, "We are gravely concerned that sexual predators are using MySpace to lure children into face-to-face encounters."

Prosecutors inked the missive after getting word that an investigative company hired by MySpace in December of 2006 has ferreted out thousands of convicted sex offenders with profile web pages.

"Perhaps thousands more sexual predators - not registered or using fictitious names - are lurking on your Web site," stated the letter signed by the attorneys general. "We remain concerned about the design of your site, the failure to require parental permission, and the lack of safeguards necessary to protect our children."

The attorneys gave MySpace until May 29, 2007 to reveal the names and addresses of registered sex offenders found at the Web site and to explain what it is doing to remove their profile pages and help police uncover wrongdoing.

MySpace said that it is in the initial stage of checking its membership roster with a Sentinel Tech Holding company database of registered sex offenders and removing profile pages of those that match.

"We agree with the attorneys general that keeping bad people out of good places on the Internet is a challenge and a priority," MySpace security chief Hemanshu Nigam said in a release. "It requires a commitment to develop new technologies and build tight collaborations between companies, law enforcement, and policymakers."

MySpace this month launched software that identifies known sex offenders and deletes their accounts.

MySpace is lobbying for a federal law requiring convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses to make it easier to screen them from membership Web sites used by young people.

US law requires people convicted of sex crimes to register their addresses with local police after they are released from custody.

Prosecutors of the states of Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and New Hampshire participated.

U.S. prosecutors want MySpace sex offenders exposed

[Al-khiyal]

(HOUSTON), June 15, 2007 — Seven convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace.com have been arrested in what Texas officials said was the country's first large-scale crackdown of registered offenders who use the social networking Web site.

The men were arrested in Houston, Austin, Round Rock, and Glenn Heights during a two-week operation by the Texas Attorney General's Cyber Crimes and Fugitive units.

They were picked up after MySpace.com released the names of offenders with online profiles to the state Attorney General's Office, which had issued a subpoena for the site's subscriber information.

"Texans will not tolerate criminals who prey on our children," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a statement.

After it was criticized for failing to protect underage subscribers, the site supplied names to attorneys general in other states, and began checking subscribers' criminal histories through Sentinel Safe, a database of registered sex offenders.

In Houston, officials arrested Patrick Joseph Blevins, 49; Reginald Lee Collins, 27; Ronald Daven Metoyer, 41; and Robert Shepard Walter, 23. Walter was also charged last month with failing to register as a sex offender.

Each was ordered held without bond in the Harris County jail. Motions were also filed to revoke the parole of Blevins, Collins and Metoyer. A Harris County jail official would not release information on the men's attorneys late Thursday.

Scott Peter Hansen, 44, was arrested in Glenn Heights, a Dallas suburb. Information on his incarceration or attorney were not immediately available late Thursday.

Jason Labronte Carr, 31, was taken into custody in Austin. A Travis County jail official said Thursday night she did not have access to information on Carr's attorney of record.

Jeremy Bryan Polak, 28, a parole violator accused of failing to register as a sex offender, was arrested in Round Rock, an Austin suburb. A Williamson County jail official said his records did not include Polak's attorney of record.

A message left with MySpace.com's media department was not immediately returned Thursday night.

Police track MySpace sex offenders

[Bent_Bladi]

lik akh min myspace akh... when my kids use the computer - i'm going to know their EVERY move...

[Cheba_Mami]

that is the good attitude, those who care for the kids don't let them fly too much. learn them the difference between trustful and non trustful things. even then these online predators still know how to poison people.

[Al-khiyal]

July 25, 2007 -- MySpace.com has found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on its website, more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago.

The figure was released by the attorney general of North Carolina, one of several US states whose officials have been pressing the popular social networking site, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, to provide data on how many registered sex offenders were using the popular social networking site and information about where they live.

MySpace initially withheld the information citing federal privacy laws, but the company began sharing the information in May after the states filed formal legal requests.

At the time, MySpace said it had already used a database it helped create to remove the profiles of around 7,000 sex offenders, out of a total of about 180m profiles on the site.

"I'm absolutely astonished and appalled because the number has grown so exponentially over so short of time with no explanation," said General Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut, who has also pressed the company for sex offender data.

MySpace declined to comment on the figure, focusing instead on its efforts to clean up its site.

"We're pleased that we've successfully identified and removed registered sex offenders from our site and hope that other social networking sites follow our lead," MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in a statement.

North Carolina is pushing for a state law that would require children to receive parental permission before creating social networking profiles, and require the websites to verify the parents' identity and age.

A Virginia man pleaded guilty this week to kidnapping and soliciting a 14-year old girl he met on MySpace.

Advocates for internet companies and privacy issues testified against the proposed restrictions, saying the broad parental verification standards would be found unconstitutional because they prohibit free speech or impede interstate commerce.

MySpace finds 29,000 sex offenders on its site

[Al-khiyal]

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 25, 2007 -- The number of convicted sex criminals found on MySpace has more than quadrupled since software designed to ferret them out began running in May, according to prosecutors in two US states.

Attorneys general from Connecticut and North Carolina said in published reports Tuesday that MySpace identified 29,000 convicted sex offenders that had profile pages on the popular social-networking Web site.

MySpace refused to discuss the number but said that its Sentinel Safe software is working "24 hours a day" and that profile pages belonging to sex criminals are deleted as soon as they are discovered.

"We partnered with Sentinel Safe to build technology to remove registered sex offenders from our site," MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam said. "Through this innovative technology, we're pleased that we've successfully identified and deleted these registered sex offenders and hope that other social networking sites follow our lead."

News Corporation-owned MySpace is the only Internet firm to develop a database and software to rid online properties of convicted sex offenders. MySpace deletes the profiles but saves information about them for law enforcement officials, according to Nigam, a former US prosecutor who handled sex crimes.

MySpace is lobbying for a federal law requiring convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses to make it easier to screen them from membership Web sites used by young people.

US law already requires people convicted of sex crimes to register their addresses with local police after they are released from custody.

There are approximately 600,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. Nearly 180 million profiles are posted on MySpace, allowing users to post blogs, music, and videos.

North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper is backing state legislation that would require Web sites to confirm that children have their parents' permission before creating online profiles.

Convicted sex offenders evicted from MySpace

[Bent_Bladi]

that doesn't mean more won't show up... ugh...