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New Jersey Subpoenas Facebook

Investigators looking for known sexual predators on networking sites

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

October 4, 2007 

It's just the latest legal challenge to Facebook. Last week, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed Facebook documents and revealed that his office has been conducting an undercover investigation of Facebook's security procedures.

Cuomo said undercover agents were repeatedly solicited by adult sexual predators on Facebook and could easily access a wide range of pornographic images and videos,

A 50-state investigation is being conducted by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. They said last week that Facebook has "a long way to go" before they're satisfied it is adequately protecting children and young adults from sexual predators.

Facebook is the latest darling of Web publishers looking for sites that rely mostly on cheap, user-generated content. It may become the target of a bidding war between Microsoft and Google. Facebook has stolen much of the limelight from Rupert Murdoch's MySpace, which has instituted new security measures to track sexual predators and block them from the site.

The New Jersey subpoena is part of an initiative to identify whether convicted New Jersey sex offenders have profiles on popular social networking sites, Milgram said. She has asked a dozen sites to check user profiles against convicted sex offender lists.

The subpoena issued this week is similar to one issued earlier this year to MySpace.com, which identified 268 New Jersey registered sex offenders with MySpace accounts and said it had eliminated the profiles.

“This is a matter of public safety, and more specifically, a matter of children’s safety," Milgram said. “Social networking sites should not be virtual playing fields for sexual predators."

The subpoena to Facebook was issued Monday and has a return date of October 12.

The Attorney General’s Office and the Division of Consumer Affairs, which is coordinating the investigation into the social networking sites, asks for all information concerning any Facebook user identified as a convicted sex offender, including names and e-mail addresses provided by individuals during registration.

Facebook was sent a list of convicted New Jersey sex offenders last month to compare with its user profiles. Facebook has told the state that it has identified and removed an unspecified number of convicted sexual offenders. The subpoena asks the social networking site to provide specific information related to the offenders.

In addition, the subpoena asks Facebook about its policies related to Internet safety and any policies concerning minors’ use of the site.

“It is important we determine what representations the social networking sites are making regarding safety and what the reality may be," Milgram said.

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