MySpace Scams

After wrapping up his work in the Star Wars saga, Darth Vader settled down in Allentown, Pa. At least, that’s what his MySpace page says.

Actually, there are at least a dozen people on the popular networking site claiming to be the famous villain-turned-hero, which tells us two things: There’s a lot of obvious lying going on and there’s not much being done to discourage it.

Both Facebook and MySpace have rules prohibiting participants from pretending to be someone else. But with droves of users — MySpace alone says it has more than 70 million — neither site is in the business of aggressively policing identity.

And they don’t have to. Sites like MySpace can’t be held liable for the actions of users, according to a ruling last year by a federal judge in Texas. The only time people come close to getting in trouble for using a false identity is when they commit a crime — usually it’s sexual predators stalking kids. But it’s the sex crime that brings charges. Using a fake persona is not a crime.

But soon it could be.

This month, federal officials in Los Angeles revealed they are investigating whether fraud was involved when 13-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself in 2006 after being taunted on MySpace by someone using a fake identity.

The account was linked to a neighboring Dardenne Prairie, Mo., family. Local authorities declined to file charges, saying the circumstances — various people had access to the account — made it difficult to assign blame. Creating the fictional Josh Evans, Megan’s tormentor, was not considered a crime.

The L.A. investigation — in the district that includes Santa Monica, the home of MySpace — is drawing attention across the country and the industry.

At the heart of the Megan Meier incident is a larger issue of honesty on the Internet, and why sitting in front of a computer makes it so easy for some people to stretch the truth, sometimes maliciously.

“It’s just so much easier to pretend to be someone else online. People are very eager to try it out,” said David Whittier, a professor at Boston University’s School of Education. “There’s really nothing wrong with that. In a way, it’s a wonderful thing.”

Unless, he said, it goes too far or is done to hurt someone, as in the Megan Meier case.

“There should be an appropriate penalty for what these people did,” Whittier said. “I’m hoping our civilized societies will work together to develop laws and guidelines to make cyberspace more civilized.”

But that’s where it gets sticky, some experts say. How do you regulate the Internet — a medium that promotes the quick flow of ideas of information — without strangling its creativity?

Catherine Dwyer, a professor at Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, doesn’t think it can be done.

Like others, she doubts the Internet will ever be able to guarantee the person on the other end of your digital line is who they say they are. Imagine, she said, the difficulties of forcing every online user to prove their identity when signing up for sites like MySpace.

MySpace has launched a free ad funded mobile version of itself.

MySpace Mobile had primarily been a service based on subscriptions available to Helio and AT&T subscribers until now. However, the new version will work on all the networks in US. MySpace users will be able to carry out the normal functions such as sending and receiving messages and friend requests, searching for friends, updating blogs, posting bulletins and commenting on pictures.

In the initial stages, banners and sponsorships will form the base of the ads. In due course, there will be more focus on targeted advertising and location based ads.

The launch can be seen as an initiative by Fox Interactive to expand the reach of MySpace. Social networking sites are increasingly being banned in educational institutes and work places, and this has prompted users to turn to their mobiles for accessing these sites. In addition, the number of users turning to their mobiles for web access and social network users on the move has increased significantly. MySpace too wants to tap in these users with its free ad funded mobile version. This might not have been possible if the services would have been confined to only Helio and AT&T subscribers.

A technology lawyer says that Facebook has paid a high price for making a basic Web 2.0 mistake that sites like MySpace, Flickr and YouTube avoid.

Investigators working for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo posed as young teenagers and set up profiles on Facebook. According to a statement from Cuomo’s office, “they received online sexual advances from adults within days and found widespread pornographic and obscene content.”

The investigators also accused Facebook of failing to respond, and at other times being slow to respond, to complaints lodged by investigators posing as parents of underage users, asking the site to take action against predators that had harassed their children.

Cuomo issued a subpoena to Facebook less than a month ago, demanding sight of certain documents. It was accompanied by a letter warning the company that “it could potentially face consumer fraud charges for failing to live up to its claims that youngsters on the website were safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns.” Facebook had also represented itself as a “trusted environment for people to interact safely,” according to Cuomo.

Facebook’s settlement of the complaint was announced at a press conference on Tuesday.

Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook agrees “to respond to and begin addressing complaints about nudity or pornography, harassment or unwelcome contact within 24 hours.” It must also report to the complainant the steps it has taken to address the complaint within 72 hours where the complaint has been emailed to abuse@facebook.com.

Hyperlinks must be placed “throughout Facebook’s website” for accepting complaints about nudity or pornography, harassment or unwelcome contact. An Independent Safety and Security Examiner will be appointed to report on Facebook’s compliance.

Facebook must also provide “a prominent and easily accessible hyperlink” to allow a Facebook user or their parent to give feedback direct to the Examiner.

“I applaud Facebook for addressing my office’s concerns about the site’s representation that they provided a safe environment and an expeditious complaint review process,” said Cuomo. “I believe our agreement will provide additional confidence to young people and parents alike and give Facebook a competitive advantage in the marketplace for setting a new standard for safety.”

The Attorney General’s statement also quoted Facebook’s founder and CEO. “Privacy and safety have been a priority since we first built Facebook,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “Our agreement with Attorney General Cuomo will set new industry standards to stop abuse online.”

“We applaud the Attorney General’s leadership and are committed to working together to keep Facebook safe,” added Zuckerberg.

Struan Robertson, a technology lawyer with Pinsent Masons and editor of OUT-LAW.COM, said that Facebook’s failure to take some of these steps of its own volition was a surprise.

“Any site that relies on user-generated content, whether it’s a small blog or a social networking giant, needs a prominent complaint mechanism. That doesn’t just help users, it also helps to channel complaints in a way that make them manageable. I’m amazed that Facebook didn’t have that already,” he said. “It’s even more important for a site that’s targeting children as well as adults.”

Facebook claims to have 47 million users. Its terms and conditions state that the site is “intended solely for users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older”. The company’s Chief Privacy Officer, Chris Kelly, told reporters this week that it believes 80% of users are over 18 but that it has no firm data.

“If Facebook had had obvious complaint systems like YouTube, Flickr and MySpace it might have avoided the Attorney General’s action. It’s now stuck with onerous demands to address complaints within 24 hours and to report on steps taken within 72 hours. Other sites will surely fear these time limits becoming the industry standard.”

In the UK, the general rule is that website operators must deal with complaints about unlawful third party material ‘expeditiously’. Robertson said that there is no case law that defines how fast that should be, though. “The only legislative reference we have to a specific time limit for the removal online material is in the Terrorism Act,” he said. Where police officers order a site to remove material that encourages acts of terrorism, the operator must comply within two days, according to that legislation.

Raiders fans have never been accused of being classy (or smart), so it figures that they would take out their frustrations on the MySpace page of Randy Moss. Most of the language was pretty blue, but pretty much what you would expect to hear in the Black Hole. So this kind of thing was expected. Actually, it would have been an upset if the Raiders fans didn’t react this way.

But what is the best part of all of this? That the Raiders would resort to the tactics typically reserved for teenage girls that have been bashed on the Internet meeting place. Seriously, how old are you guys, 10? Or the fact that the page probably doesn’t belong to Randy Moss at all?

Either way, you have to love those knuckleheads.

MySpace has shut down phishing websites attempting to mimic MySpace, including the crafty rnyspace.com and myspaceplus.com. One user even customized the URL of his real MySpace profile to appear like the legitimate MySpace login page.

MySpace plans to offer free parental notification software in a bid to appease government critics, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Parents will be able to use the software, named “Zephyr,” to find out what name, age and location their children use to represent themselves on MySpace, the Journal said.

It would not allow parents to read their children’s e-mail or see their profile pages, and it would alert children that their information was being shared, the paper reported.

The news comes as a group of 33 state attorneys general considers whether to take action against MySpace if it does not raise the age limit to join the site to 16 from 14 and begin verifying members’ ages, the paper said.

A lawsuit would make for bad publicity for the site just as advertisers are overcoming their concerns about it, the paper said.

News Corp. bought the service for $580 million in 2005, and some analysts have speculated that it could be worth billions of dollars in the next several years.

Popular among teenagers, the site has had to deal with public criticism that some children who use it provide too much personal information, making them easy prey for sex offenders.

A primary challenge has been to add safety features while not alienating teenagers, the Journal reported.

Another problem is skepticism from the rest of the Internet industry, the paper said. One big question is whether the service would violate users’ privacy rights; another is whether other people besides parents could use the software to monitor children, the Journal said.

The privacy question prompted social networking site Facebook and blogging site Xanga to decline to join MySpace’s efforts, the paper reported.

Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL have not said whether they would join the effort, the Journal said.

MySpace said in December that it would start offering technology to identify and block convicted sex offenders. The service would cover about 46 state sex offender registers.

MySpace also requires members over 18 years old to know the e-mail and first and last name of any 14- or 15-year-old members whom they want to contact.

MySpace said it will develop technologies to help block convicted sex offenders.

MySpace is partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to build a database containing names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States. The News Corp. site, however, stopped short of adopting Sentinel’s technology for verifying the ages and identities of its users.

The database, to be called Sentinel Safe, “will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, said in a statement.

Parents, school administrators and law-enforcement authorities have become increasingly worried that teens are finding trouble at social-networking sites, which provide tools for messaging, sharing photos and creating personal pages known as profiles.

The aim of such sites is for users to expand their circles of friends — and critics say those circles sometimes include predators, including those previously convicted of sexual crimes.

John Cardillo, Sentinel’s chief executive, said the database will give MySpace and other sites a tool to help keep out sex offenders.

I just recieved some more info about the MY SPACE dangers. I found out exactly how thieves are locating houses by using MY SPACE combined with a second awful site.When you sign up for “Your Space” you enter the following information:
Name, Age, City & State, Zodiac Sign, height, build, children’s info, hobbies, marital status and occupation. You may think that this information is innocent but it is not AT ALL.

There is another web site called “zabba.com” this site is a free search engine used to locate addresses & phone numbers (Even Unlisted #’s!) of anybody worldwide! All the person needs is your name. If they can enter your city as well it will help narrow down the amount of people they have to search through. However, since YOU listed your birthdate or age or your zodiac sign on MY SPACE, finding out which “Bob Jones” you are will be a breeze.

Once they have determined your address they cross reference this with your occupation listed on MY SPACE. If you are a “Hot Single, Night Shift Bartender at Lucky’s” they all ready know when you are not going to be home.

Parents are even using MY SPACE as a way to show friends their pictures of their lovely children - BAD IDEA. Any thieves or predators can now stalk your family from the privacy of their own home.
If “Your Space” says you “have two sons - ages 4 and 8 who are honor roll students at Parker Elementary”, this tells thieves that when you are not home, nor are they.
You can even reverse the rolls - parents, your children can say, “My mom works at the dentist office and my dad works at ford”.

Here’s a little more IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT about Zabba.com
whether it is cross referenced with MY SPACE or not, you can use it to find out some ones name, address, phone number, PARENTS NAMES, MOTHERS MAIDEN NAME, GRANDPARENTS ans every place your family has lived. This is very scary. I didn’t believe it. I entered my name and EVERYTHING listed appeared. Even how many criminal violations I have had (traffic tix).

I want to see if there is a way to get removed from the list. I was told that if you sign up for things on the internet you MUST read the fine print before you submit your info. I was told that sites can sell your presoanl information to third parites, zabba.com could easily be buying this info.
If you are interested in seeing EXACTLY what I have been talking about, I went to MY SPACE and found a perfect example of a profile. Here’s the link (Please copy and paste the entire link into your browser.):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=47386876  

******This is 29 year old woman. She innocently posted many pics of her children, husband to be and her self. She EVEN writes: “I spend my weekends watching my kids play soccer, basketball or baseball. I like to talk on the phone to anyone who will listen. I love to lay in bed all day on a Sunday and watch MTV with Mike.”

If anybody has more information about zabba.com or MY SPACE plase send it to me.

HERE’S THE LINK, try it for yourself:
http://www.melissadata.com/cgi-bin/peoplefinder.asp