Hello ken, Great topic,I know all 3 of my girls are on my space but they have theres set at privacy mode,only there friends that know each other from school or neighbors can access there site.I know because some of our Adlandpro friends have tried to get them to except there invitations and my girls say why would we want someone over 18 years talking to us!!!!THere only 13,14,16 years old,But Im glad you are talking about this,people need to be accountable for what there kids do and not always just blame the other person,ill be keeping an eye on this topic,thanks,Kathy Martin

Hi Kenneth, Well, It should be no surprise that the parent company of myspace also owns FOX television and I think the attitude towards how they handle the myspace site is similar to the way they handle programming: driven by advertising and mass acceptance, with a pinch of "don't ask, don't tell" disregard. I don't think any lawsuit will stick with much adhesion because I've seen eBay overcome obstacles with the law and we're looking at almost equal power here. At best, myspace MAY change some of the ways in how they handle registration, and self-preservation (disclaimers, etc.) Besides, I think a lot of kids lie online about age anyway. (Myspace does offer younger users the option to privatize their pages, but who wants to do that when the goal is to get noticed?) The youth segment is a hot marketing commodity right now thanks to all the money we parents shower on them. And unfortunately most parents are either too busy earning that money or too tired to really monitor their kids activities online. Plus, thanks to the warped view of tolerance, trust, and privacy we have adopted as a society, it is commonly held that to "pry" into what our children do online would be some kind of offense! Easier to blame the powers that be, like myspace. So, is myspace free of blame then? I think the better question would be to ask if it is even possible for myspace or any other site to put into effect any measure of protection that would satisfy all end-users. If there is such ameasure in existence, then, there is an awesome opportunity here for some company to take advantage and create a website where kids could be safe from predators and material that is unacceptable to young eyes/ears. The closest thing I've seen to this is a software recently created by a guy that monitors, blocks and keys all instant messaging conversations. Only time will tell if ingenuity can take us toward the next step. Until then, I'm at least thankful that the questions are being brought public with as much passion as they are. It shows that we, as a society, are not completely devoid of morals (as one might think by just flipping through the net/myspace). Well, that's my rant. :)

Teachers aren't responsible for monitoring the social activity of students.

They are required to report illegal and inappropriate activity, but they're not required to actively watch students, and I'll bet they won't watch students unless they already have a reason to be suspicious. So why should an impersonal company be responsible for doing more than a teacher to watch teenagers?

The only ones who have that responsibility are parents.

I think Myspace should take any precautions that are practical, but someone said it best when they asked "How can a computer tell when you're lying?". It can't.