Spring Break
Social Networking Law Would Be Worthless
Laura Alix
Issue date: 3/13/07 Section: Commentary
If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet." These are the words of Connecticut State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. A proposed law recently introduced to the Connecticut General Assembly would require Internet social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to verify users' ages and obtain parental permission before allowing minors to post profiles. Although about a dozen states are currently considering laws like this, Connecticut is the first state to actually draft such a law and submit it for review and concern over this matter is understandable. No fewer than six alleged assaults took place between older men and young girls who had been contacted on MySpace in Connecticut last year. Unsurprisingly, we are hearing the battle cries of "Protect the children!" once again.
Under this law, Web sites might be required to cross-check personal information against existing public records to make sure that names, addresses and birth dates match. Parents might need to be contacted directly by a representative from the Web site if necessary to verify permission. Blumenthal suggested that obtaining parental permission might consist of printing out a form to fill out and mail to the site's office, but other than that, had few suggestions as to how web sites like MySpace could comply with the law. The intent of the proposed law is crystal clear - to protect children from predators on the Internet, particularly on MySpace. That's about it, though. The law suggests no specific ways of verifying parental permission and is unclear about how sites can ensure that minors don't simply fake permission. According to Blumenthal, those matters would be left up to MySpace and its ilk. In other words, legislators want to create a law applying specifically to social networking sites, give these Web sites few, if any, guidelines for how they can best comply with the law and then fine them $5,000 a day for every day that they do not comply.
Normally, age can be verified online with a credit card. MySpace could even require a driver's license number as well to verify a user's age. There are several problems with that, though. First of all, complying with such a law would essentially require that MySpace suspend all user accounts until a credit card number is entered. Secondly, a minor could always borrow his or her parents' credit card under other pretenses or even swipe it when no one is watching and use the number to fake parental permission or age. Finally, entering such information to verify identity on a Web site like MySpace would exponentially increase the risk of identity theft. If you have a MySpace account, you're probably well aware of the increased number of phishing attacks, or "MySpace viruses," going around lately. It is no stretch of the imagination to presume that putting credit card information on MySpace will lead to more identity theft and thus more useless, annoying and unenforceable legislation to deal with the new problem.
Under this law, Web sites might be required to cross-check personal information against existing public records to make sure that names, addresses and birth dates match. Parents might need to be contacted directly by a representative from the Web site if necessary to verify permission. Blumenthal suggested that obtaining parental permission might consist of printing out a form to fill out and mail to the site's office, but other than that, had few suggestions as to how web sites like MySpace could comply with the law. The intent of the proposed law is crystal clear - to protect children from predators on the Internet, particularly on MySpace. That's about it, though. The law suggests no specific ways of verifying parental permission and is unclear about how sites can ensure that minors don't simply fake permission. According to Blumenthal, those matters would be left up to MySpace and its ilk. In other words, legislators want to create a law applying specifically to social networking sites, give these Web sites few, if any, guidelines for how they can best comply with the law and then fine them $5,000 a day for every day that they do not comply.
Normally, age can be verified online with a credit card. MySpace could even require a driver's license number as well to verify a user's age. There are several problems with that, though. First of all, complying with such a law would essentially require that MySpace suspend all user accounts until a credit card number is entered. Secondly, a minor could always borrow his or her parents' credit card under other pretenses or even swipe it when no one is watching and use the number to fake parental permission or age. Finally, entering such information to verify identity on a Web site like MySpace would exponentially increase the risk of identity theft. If you have a MySpace account, you're probably well aware of the increased number of phishing attacks, or "MySpace viruses," going around lately. It is no stretch of the imagination to presume that putting credit card information on MySpace will lead to more identity theft and thus more useless, annoying and unenforceable legislation to deal with the new problem.
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