Tech Shout!

This is sure to be great news for most of the MySpace users.

MySpace has announced that very soon it will be introducing ‘Sentinel Safe’ - a new technology that recognizes and blocks convicted sex offenders.

For the initiative, MySpace has penned a deal with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp, US-based Background Verification Expert, to develop the new technology. The ‘Sentinel Safe’ technology will allow MySpace search State and Federal databases to search for and delete MySpace profiles of registered sex offenders. MySpace claims the safety feature will be made available in the next 30 days.

Praising the novel move, MySpace’s first Chief Security Officer and Ex-Fed Prosecutor, Hemanshu Nigam, said the network is ever committed to keeping sex offenders at bay.

Sentinel will build a search tool for MySpace using data from aggregators such as LexisNexis’ Seisint Inc., Sentinel Chief Executive John Cardillo said. The database, to be updated monthly, will include details such as names, age, hair color, height, scars and tattoos.

Owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the social networking website MySpace commands a huge teen following, thanks to its appealing offerings. In a matter of just three years, the website has managed to net more than 76 million registered users, making it the sixth most popular English language Web site in the world.

However the downside is that the site has had to contend with increasing instances of sexual predators soliciting sex online.

Under growing pressure to protect the personal safety of its users whilst online, and to protect entertainment copyrights, MySpace, appointed an Ex-Fed Prosecutor as its first Chief Security Officer in April this year, mainly for the purpose of overseeing child safety measures on the Web site.

Of the latest move, it is learnt that there are around 550,000 registered sex offenders in the whole of the United States, and that the new service will actually qualify as the first National Database endeavoring to bring together the 46 odd State sex offender registers under one platform.