Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, along with seven other state attorney generals, signed a letter Monday demanding that MySpace provide a list of sex offenders who use the online social networking site and explain the steps the company will take to alert both law enforcement officials and potential victims. In October 2006, Wired magazine published an article revealing that it had identified 744 sex offenders who use MySpace. However, the search could not identify sex offenders who either had not registered for sex crimes or used false information in their MySpace accounts.
"By its nature, a search like mine is only going to produce people who use their real names and addresses, and who are perhaps the least likely of the offenders to be up to no good," wrote the report's author, Kevin Poulsen. Following the report, MySpace announced in December 2006 that it had partnered with Sentinel Tech Holding, an ID verification firm, to identify and search for sex offenders.
Monday's letter demanded quicker action. "Perhaps thousands more sexual predators—not registered or using fictitious names—are on your Web site. We remain concerned about the design of your site and need for parental permission," the attorney generals wrote.
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