Sue MySpace, some more Options

[Billy]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said Thursday.

The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.

MySpace, based in Los Angeles, did not immediately return calls for comment.

Critics including parents, school officials and police have been increasingly warning of online predators at sites like MySpace, where youth-oriented visitors are encouraged to expand their circles of friends using free messaging tools and personal profile pages.

MySpace has responded with added educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement.

They are also developing a tool that will alert parents of the username, age and location a child lists on personal MySpace page. (Full story)

The company has also placed restrictions on how adults may contact younger users on MySpace, while developing technologies such as one announced Wednesday to let parents see some aspects of their child's online profile, including the stated age. That tool is expected this summer.

The lawyers who filed the latest lawsuits said the plaintiffs include a 15-year-old girl from Texas who was lured to a meeting, drugged and assaulted in 2006 by an adult MySpace user, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Texas after pleading guilty to sexual assault.

The others are a 15-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old from New York and two South Carolina sisters, ages 14 and 15.

Last June, the mother of a 14-year-old who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. That lawsuit, filed in a Texas state court, claims the 19-year-old lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust and phone number.

This was on cnn. Is there anyone here who agrees with these people? Because I really think we need to stop babying society. Why stop at MySpace? Why not also sue the ISP, Internet Explorer, and the computer company that sold them the computer? Hopefully these retards don't win and just end up wasting a lot of money. But I guess it's too hard to accept you're a bad parent. So let's blame someone else! I really think these parents should be imprisoned for child negligence for not knowing where their child was running off to. Or at a minimum CPS needs to take their kids away from them.

[Divergent Realit...]

raaar!

these people need to realize that the internet is not the perfect babysitter they wish it could be. young people still need their online activities moniered by an adult. the internet is not some happy fun place like pax or the disney channel. its the "good" and the "bad." myspace is even worse because it contains a massive network with little control on who you contact. i know i have pretty much only contempt for myspace, but other people think is hotter than sliced bread. and when you switch from people using something because they know how it works or are interested in the subject to people wanting access because its the trendy thing to do you get a massive influx of idiots. and people are stupid. this is four out of how many thousand users? they are the idiots who in a simpler time would have been weeded out through life and its trials.

sure. toss in controls that allow parents to view what a child does on their myspace.

make it automatically email them so it can be checked at work. have it send everey friend request, every convnersation, every page visited and every external site visited through myspace.

see how many parents are going to sift through all that.

i know i wouldnt.

i just have the best advice in the world to give.

dont meet people off the internet.

sure, i can say this. but i have broken this rule several times. i have met and hung out with people who i have had only intarweb experience.

minors on the other hand, do not need to be meeting people from the internet.

like glen said - they are idiots and they are gonna get rape.

now, with that many females filing suit, the big question i have is how many little boys got their butt pirated from myspace?

because rape is a double headed coin. and those heads are going in you.