Tech Shout!

MySpace and parent company News Corp. have been dragged to court by four families whose daughters were molested by adults they met of the site. The fuming parents have accused MySpace for having done too little too late to execute security measures that could have helped prevent such an outcome, and are alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies. The angry parents are now seeking monetary damages “in the millions of dollars.

The lawyers who filed the latest lawsuits said the petitioners include a 15-year-old girl from Texas who was enticed to a meeting, drugged and assaulted in 2006 by an adult MySpace user, who is currently serving a 10-year sentence in Texas after pleading guilty to sexual assault.

The others are a 15-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old from upstate New York and two South Carolina sisters, ages 14 and 15.

“MySpace serves as an industry leader on Internet safety and we take proactive measures to protect our members,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, said. . “We provide users with a range of tools to enable a safer online experience.”

However, Nigam added that Internet safety is a shared responsibility, requiring users to “apply common sense offline safety lessons in their online experiences and engage in open family dialogue.”

Somewhere, we do agree with Nigam that though MySpace is essentially an online network to make and meet friends. But ironically people seem to be totally swayed towards making buddies and are perhaps blinded towards their individual safety and security. And what about the parents, keeping in mind that the plaintiffs are below the age of 16, can’t parents be a little more careful about their child’s wellbeing.