MySpace.com agreed Monday to turn over the names of convicted sex offenders who use the popular social-networking Web site.
“MySpace has taken on the task of making sure sexual predators are not allowed to use their site as a path to find more victims,” said Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who was one of 52 attorneys general to demand the information. “We are all appreciative that MySpace heeded our call, and I am very eager to get the information into the hands of law enforcement.”
The company confirmed it has identified thousands of registered sex offenders as members and deleted these users from the site.
MySpace also has agreed to preserve the information and provide it to the attorneys general, Gansler said.
Once Maryland receives the information about sex offenders using the site in the state, Gansler will immediately turn it over to law enforcement so authorities can look for potential parole violations by offenders who may be barred from using a computer or contacting minors.
Gansler spokeswoman Raquel Guillory said she expected to receive the names of the state?s convicted sex offenders using MySpace within a week.
MySpace also has agreed to continue to search its site for registered sex offenders and will give the states information about all offenders found on its site, including their e-mail and IP addresses.
Since May 2006, the attorneys general have been pushing social-networking sites to do a better job of protecting children from sexual predators, Gansler?s office said.
MySpace obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., with whom the company partnered in December to build a database with information on sex offenders in the United States.
Mike Angus, MySpace?s executive vice president and general counsel, said the company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., always had planned to share information on sex offenders it identified and has removed about 7,000 profiles, out of a total of about 180 million.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
