According to the New York Times, MySpace has teamed up with 49 states (the rogue 50th state is not mentioned in the article) to announce a new safety initiative to protect minors from the potential dangers of using their social network.

Among the dozens of measures MySpace has agreed to take, the social network will let parents submit the e-mail addresses of their children, so the company can prevent anyone from using that address to set up a profile. It will also set the profiles of all 16 and 17-year-olds to private, so only their established online friends can visit their pages - essentially creating a “closed” section for users under age 18.

Too bad this new measure won’t actually help the issue. Any net-savvy teen/tween/toddler will take all of 5 minutes to set up another email account on one of the many, many free services out there. Attempts at stopping them is futile, parents should instead supervise their children or make sure they’re aware of the (overly-publicized) dangers of the internet and how to avoid them. I think my feelings on the whole matter are best summed up by this Slashdot member’s comment:

Fake problem, fake solution, everybody’s happy.

On a completely unrelated note, the Macworld keynote speech by Steve Jobs is now over. It was a live blogger’s dream. Here’s the quick and dirty: 4 million iPhones sold since launch, iPhone & iPod Touch will be getting software upgrades, iTunes movie rentals, upgraded Apple TV, and last but not least the new MacBook Air.

Submitted by: Anne Baynes, Assistant Network Administrator
on January 15, 2008 - 2:22 pm

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