MySpace reaches accord with Attorneys General

Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Monday it reached an accord with eight state attorneys general and has worked out a legal mechanism to hand over information on convicted sex offenders found on its service.

Last week, a coalition of U.S. law enforcement authorities criticized the News Corp.-owned service for not divulging information from profiles of convicted sex offenders lurking on MySpace.

MySpace said it had identified, blocked and deleted “a few thousand” such profiles, but had declined to hand over the information, citing a disclosure law barring it from giving away the information without a court order. By last Wednesday, MySpace and the attorneys general group reached an agreement.

MySpace officials said they had always intended to provide information to law enforcement officials, but were trying to work out a legal process for handing over the information.

“When we remove individuals from our site, we always keep in mind the law enforcement aspects of it,” MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in an interview.

The two parties have worked out a system to hand over information to be used to pursue offenders, although the process could differ from state to state.