As a New York Post article reads, Google, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace and Facebook are just a few of the companies that have agreed to participate in a newly formed Internet safety task force that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and attorneys general from the 49 other states have been seeking for months.
The task force, which was announced Thursday, will evaluate how new software that can verify a person's age and other technological advances might be used to better protect children when they are online.
Other participating companies include AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, Symantec, Verizon and Xanga. The task force will be led by John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is also volunteering its resources.
"This task force is virtually a who's who of the Internet," Blumenthal said. "Teaming MySpace and Facebook together with other Internet titans is a major breakthrough for social networking safety."
Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper are leading a national attorneys general work group on Internet safety. The group formed more than a year ago in response to an increasing number of cases in which adults were preying on young children by reaching out to them through popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, MySpace officials, responding to pressure from Blumenthal and others, identified more than 5,000 registered sex offenders nationally who had created profiles on the network, including about 100 in Connecticut. Those profiles have since been purged.
Last month, MySpace started restricting public access to profiles created by its 16- and 17-year-old users. Such restrictions used to apply only to profiles for 14- and 15-year-olds. The change was part of 74 new security measures MySpace enacted after striking an agreement with the attorneys general on safety concerns.
Other participating companies include AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, Symantec, Verizon and Xanga. The task force will be led by John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is also volunteering its resources.
"This task force is virtually a who's who of the Internet," Blumenthal said. "Teaming MySpace and Facebook together with other Internet titans is a major breakthrough for social networking safety."
Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper are leading a national attorneys general work group on Internet safety. The group formed more than a year ago in response to an increasing number of cases in which adults were preying on young children by reaching out to them through popular social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.
Last year, MySpace officials, responding to pressure from Blumenthal and others, identified more than 5,000 registered sex offenders nationally who had created profiles on the network, including about 100 in Connecticut. Those profiles have since been purged.
Last month, MySpace started restricting public access to profiles created by its 16- and 17-year-old users. Such restrictions used to apply only to profiles for 14- and 15-year-olds. The change was part of 74 new security measures MySpace enacted after striking an agreement with the attorneys general on safety concerns.
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2 comments:
hello inconstantin...long time no see...! i think this will be a good news to all parents out there...dont u think so?
Hey! That would be a good news for those of us really concerned with moral issues and a healthy genereration to come, right you are indeed:)! P.S. I got back my entrecard for a while, does yours work, are you satisfied with it?
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