MySpace to share info on sex offenders

RALEIGH, N.C. — Faced with legal demands from several state attorneys general, MySpace.com said Monday it will immediately begin sharing data on the registered sex offenders it has identified and removed from the popular social-networking Web site.

MySpace balked last week when attorneys general from eight states demanded that it provide data on how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live.

The company said federal privacy laws required the states to file subpoenas or other legal requests before it could release the information. MySpace general counsel Mike Angus said company officials met with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal last week to sort out the details of those requests.

"We hope to get requests from every state," Angus said. "From day one, we have preserved all the information in the hopes of getting these requests."

MySpace, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. The companies formed a partnership in December to build a database.

Angus said MySpace has already used the database to remove about 7,000 profiles out of a total of about 180 million.

The companies "developed 'Sentinel Safe' from scratch because there was no means to weed [sexual predators] out and get them off of our site," Angus said.

Social-networking sites such as MySpace allow users to create online profiles with photos, music and personal information, and let them send messages to one another and, in many cases, browse other profiles.

"Many of these sex offenders may have violated their parole or probation by contacting or soliciting children on MySpace," Blumenthal said.