When we talked about the battle beginning yesterday, concerning MySpace (NWS) announcing that they were introducing Parental Notification Software, I didn't think it would start this quickly.
Less than 24 hours after that post, four families have sued the site charging them with "recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation."
The four families allege that their teenage daughters were solicited through the online site and then sexually abused by adults that they had met through those interaction, according to lawyers representing them.
"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," Arnold and Itkin lawyer Jason Itkin said in a statement.
"Blaming the families of abuse victims who were solicited online, as some have done, is a cynical excuse that ignores the fact that social networking sites can lead to heinous abuse by Internet predators," said Adam Loewy of Barry & Loewey law firm of Austin, TX. " It is now clear that MySpace recognizes that serious security problems exist."
Hemanshu Nigam, the site's chief security officer, said "Ultimately, Internet safety is a shared responsibility. We encourage everyone to apply common sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue about smart web practices,"
Whether one thinks this sounds right or not won't even be an issue, it's whether a jury thinks it sound right or not.
The problem is that people have been urging the social-networking sites to increase the age of those signing up, which hasn't been adopted yet. This may not look good in a trial.
Concerning Nigam's comment that it's a "shared responsibility" has some problems to. How does a 14 year-old teen protect themselves from someone posing as a peer when they're in truth an adult?
This is slippery slope when a victim of a crime, especially minors and their families, are looked upon as part of the problem. I couldn't see the defense stating that.
The stakes are high in what comes out of this. It won't be the monetary damages if the victims win the case, it'll be the resultant lawsuits that follow that will be huge.
One other potential problem is if MySpace put out their Parental Notification Software knowing that these cases were going to be presented. If they did, it could look bad for them as waiting too long to do something like lawyers are stating.
The families, which are from four different states, filed suits in Los Angeles Superior Court.
A myspace blog said that myspace phishing is on the rise. and that was something that got me really scared. my daughter and i are into myspace. I have lots of old-time friends I haven't talked to, and it's nice to get back to the time where we can discuss business and our families, but I'm worried about my daughter. she's only 16, and though we've advised her to be careful, still, it isn't an assurance that she'll never fall for sexual predators. Maybe I'll just have to block Myspace at home for a while, and inform the school to do it as well.
Myspace is slowly losing grips on privacy.
Posted by: myspaceparent | January 18, 2007 8:20 PM | Permalink to Comment