Thursday, 25 January 2007

MySpace to Distribute Amber Alerts

MySpace has palns to send online alerts to users—the progam’s aim is to locate missing children. This strategy of the company comes at a time when it is slapped with lawsuits by four families who claim their underaged daughters were sexually assaulted by people they first met on the site...

MySpace has palns to send online alerts to users—the progam’s aim is to locate missing children. This strategy of the company comes at a time when it is slapped with lawsuits by four families who claim their underaged daughters were sexually assaulted by people they first met on the site.

To initiate the alert program, MySpace has inked a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

MySpace also claims it has hired former US Justice Department prosecutor last year to improve its online safety program.

The Amber alerts program is so called after the name of a 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1996 in Texas, the company said.

"We've been working with partners...and law enforcement to find any possible avenue we can take to protect our nation's children, keeping sex offenders off our site and providing technology that the entire industry can take advantage of," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said.

Under the terms of the program, MySpace wants all new members to register with a valid e-mail address, which they say helps law enforcement track down prowling online criminals.New applicants will receive a verification e-mail with a link requiring them to click back and verify their identity, the company explained.