MySpace Sued by Families of Assault Victims

Not even one day after it was revealed that MySpace was tackling the problem of predators on its site head on, two Texas-based law firms said Thursday that they had filed suit against the site and parent company News Corp. over that exact issue.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four families in New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina whose daughters were assaulted by adult MySpace users. The suit alleges negligence, recklessness, fraud, and negligent representation.

In each case, the adult MySpace member used the site to lure the child to a meeting place. From there, the victims were kidnapped and sometimes drugged, and then sexually assaulted. In all cases, those responsible have been caught and charged, one such receiving a 10-year prison sentence.

Law firms Barry & Loewy of Austin, and Arnold & Itkin of Houston are representing the plaintiffs. The suit was filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. "Like state attorneys general throughout the nation, we believe that more must be done to ensure that social networking sites are made safer," Attorney Jason Itkin said.

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," he continued.

Attorneys General from 33 states are threatening legal action if MySpace does not deal with the problem of child predators on its site sufficiently. The company has come up with "Zephyr," a small application that can be installed to monitor profile changes and logins, but it has gotten a cool reception.

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