MySpace agrees to greater policing [January 15]

In a move advertised to improve youth Internet safety, state Attorney General Bob McDonnell, along with 10 other attorneys general who sit on a committee investigating online social networking, announced that MySpace has voluntarily agreed to make several changes to its site, including allowing parents to submit their children’s e-mails, making the default setting “private” for profiles of 16- and 17-year-olds, promising to respond within 72 hours to inappropriate content complaints and committing more staff and/or resources to review and classify photographs and discussion groups. Whew!


The Virginia Attorney General wants to protect your children.

“This is the way we keep children safer online, by working for progress and improvements with technology leaders,” McDonnell said to a cyberspace already under his watch. In 2006, Virginia’s attorney general (a Republican candidate for governor in 2009) set up his Youth Internet Safety Task Force, which resulted in the passing of sweeping reforms of the laws governing Internet predators, as well as the implementation of statewide educational initiatives. Can anyone say “election issue”?