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<div align="left">Battling perceptions that it’s an unsavory online hangout for sexual predators, social-networking giant MySpace.com has hired a former federal prosecutor to patrol the site and has launched a series of ads warning kids about the dangers of the Internet.

Fox Interactive Media (FIM), the parent company of Santa Monica-based MySpace.com, announced Tuesday the appointment of Internet safety expert and former Justice Department porn prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam, the company’s first chief security officer. Nigam, an advisor to the White House on cyberstalking, will oversee all safety, education and privacy programs and law enforcement affairs for the Web site, as well as the growing network of FIM properties. His appointment becomes effective May 1.

The announcement came just a day after News Corp., which owns FIM, began running public-service announcements by the Advertising Council — the nonprofit behind “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” and other campaigns — on MySpace, News Corp.’s other Web sites, and its television channels, including Fox Broadcasting, FX and Fox Sports Net. The spots caution children to “not believe the hype,” meaning don’t trust anyone who approaches them online, even if they think it could be someone they know.

“We think education is the single most important tool to help kids become aware of the dangers on the Internet, and that is why we have partnered with the Advertising Council and why for a long time we’ve had safety tips posted on the bottom of our (Web) pages,” said Matthew Grossman, a spokesman for MySpace. “We are helping people to learn the basic rules of the road to help kids and their parents mitigate some of the risks.”

The road has been bumpy for MySpace since July 2005, when it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. as part of a $580-million deal for Intermix Media Inc. The Web site, which now has more than 68 million members worldwide, suddenly fell under greater scrutiny as its membership and advertising budget grew. Instead of operating under the radar, MySpace became front-page news, particularly after pedophiles were caught on the site trying to arrange sexual encounters with underage boys and girls.

Parents also complained about the posting of racy images and vulgar language on the site, leading many to pull their children’s membership.

Schools in Orange, Monterey and Los Angeles counties have responded to parental concerns and have banned access to the site from school computers. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has done the same.

“The school computers have a filtering system that blocks a number of Web sites, including MySpace, (video) gaming pages, (and) pages where purchases can be made,” said Amy Fowler, the school district’s liaison for the District Advisory Committee on Technology.

For those unfamiliar with the wildly popular MySpace, the site offers its members the ability to design detailed profiles online. These profiles feature photos, music, videos and daily diaries, where members express some of their most intimate thoughts. Users are able to easily communicate with friends for free and reach across continents to make new acquaintances.

That has made MySpace and other sites like it some of the fastest growing on the Internet. MySpace is currently the second most viewed site on the Internet behind Yahoo.com, Grossman said.

The hiring of Nigam and the ad campaign are coincidental and are not in response to the negative publicity MySpace has received recently, Grossman said.

“A lot of those issues are endemic of the Internet and not particular to MySpace,” Grossman said. “But we do recognize concerns, and that is why we have had security instituted since inception.”

Security measures include limiting the use of the site to members who are at least 14 years old; providing special protection to members who are under 16 so their personal information can’t be accessed by other users they don’t know; requiring all members under age 18 to review safety tips prior to signing-up; deleting profiles of under-age members; reviewing every image posted to a profile; providing parents free filtering software; and limiting access to certain groups on the site that deal in adult content.

MySpace has deleted more than 250,000 under-age profiles and scans roughly 2 million images a day, Grossman said.

Ellen Seiter, Ph.D., a professor at University of Southern California specializing in children and the Internet, said MySpace’s recent moves are “pretty much a publicity stunt, a public relations patch-up job.” But she applauds any effort that increases security for youth on the Internet — particularly protection from online advertisers.

“This sexual predator issues is something of a red herring,” Seiter said. “In terms of probability, it is more likely for your child to be molested by someone they know in real life … than on the Internet, but we don’t stop our children from playing sports or taking music lessons or going to church. Children need to be protected, but banning them from the Internet is not the option.”

Seiter said parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives and monitor their Internet use. By doing so, parents can protect their children from sexual predators, as well as from aggressive advertisers and those looking to steal intellectual property.

“Kids have been taught that the Internet is this wonderful medium that is free for all, but it really has become big business, and kids need to learn about this aspect as well as how to increase their access to education,” Seiter said. “I’m sure most kids don’t know that when they put up a picture or post a poem on MySpace that MySpace owns that. Children are giving up their rights to ownership without even knowing it. Now that’s scary.”</div>
Source Article Found <a href="http://www.smdp.com/article/articles/1018/1/MySpace-recruits-security-leader">Here</a>.

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