Tech Shout!

MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users. This is in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site. The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen’s list of friends.

MySpace has recently become a target of parents, schools and law enforcement officials concerned that teens who hang out at MySpace can fall victim to sexual predators. Just this week, a 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old user sued MySpace and News Corp., seeking $30 million in damages. And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl who tricked her parents into getting her a passport flew to the Mideast to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

Under the changes which are expected to take effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over can no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old’s friends’ list unless they already know either the youth’s e-mail address or full name. Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. However, users under 18 can still make such contact, and MySpace has no mechanism for verifying that users submit their true age when registering. That means adults can sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old’s list of friends, which would enable the full profiles.

MySpace will also improve its ad-targeting technology, so that it can avoid displaying gambling and other adult-themed sites on minors’ profile pages and target special public-service announcements to them.

MySpace already has developed safety tips for parents and children and has its site monitored round the clock by employees. However, MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

MySpace, which is driven largely by word of mouth, has grown enormously since its launch in January 2004 and is now second in the United States among all Web sites by total page views, behind only Yahoo Inc. according to comScore Media Metrix. The site currently has some 87 million users, about a quarter registered as minors, according to the company.