MySpace Finds and Bans 29,000 Sexual Offenders

MySpace.com is on of the largest social networking sites on the Internet, frequented by millions of young people. Wednesday MySpace found more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles on the Web site, more than four times the number cited by the company two months ago.

MySpace has initially withheld data on how many registered sex offenders were using the popular social networking site, along with information about where they live citing federal privacy laws. It later began sharing the information in May after the states filed formal legal requests. At the time, MySpace said it had already used a database it helped create to remove about 7,000 profiles of sex offenders, out of a total of about 180 million profiles on the site.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has been pushing for a state law that would require children to receive parental permission before creating social networking profiles, and require the Web sites to verify the parents' identity and age. Cooper is working with law enforcement officials in other states in pressuring MySpace to use age and identity verification methods voluntarily. His office reportedly found more than 100 criminal incidents this year of adults using MySpace to prey or attempt to prey on children.