My suit: Cybersex crimes.A 13-YEAR-OLD girl in Texas met a 19-year-old boy on MySpace The most popular social networking site on the Web, especially for teenagers and people under 30. Founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, MySpace was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation via its $500 million purchase of parent company Intermix in 2005. , the wildly popular online community site. She claimed to be 15; he claimed to be a high school senior and a football star. They exchanged phone numbers, they met at a Whataburger, and he allegedly sexually assaulted her in his parked car. Her parents are suing him. They're also suing MySpace and its parent company, Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. Guess whom they hope to squeeze for Verb 1. squeeze for - squeeze someone for money, information, etc. coerce, force, hale, pressure, squeeze - to cause to do through pressure or necessity, by physical, moral or intellectual means :"She forced him to take a job in the city"; "He squeezed her for at least $30 million? The suit argues that MySpace "proximately prox·i·mate adj. 1. Very near or next, as in space, time, or order. See Synonyms at close. 2. Approximate. [Latin proxim caused" the assault by offering false assurances about its "protections" for the young on which the victim relied. But the issue of age is irrelevant to the question of who might assault you. At any rate, users know how easy it is to lie about age (and other things) on MySpace. MySpace asks users to identify themselves and give ages, and it bars those who claim to be under 14 from joining. Since this suit was filed, the rules have been changed so that those who say they are 18 or older cannot view or contact those who claim to be 14 and 15. Several state attorneys general have been leaning on MySpace to toughen up its age verification. No proposals to do this over the Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the can work reliably, from requiring credit cards to "verified ver·i·fy tr.v. ver·i·fied, ver·i·fy·ing, ver·i·fies 1. To prove the truth of by presentation of evidence or testimony; substantiate. 2. " e-mail addresses See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address . Even kids can get credit cards, or at least credit card names and numbers. And given the economy of youth cool in which MySpace thrives, such annoying new restrictions likely would send kids fleeing MySpace to the next, yet-to-be-sued community site. |
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