Conn. Bill Would Require Age Proof Online

A day after a man was sentenced to 14 years in prison for setting up a sexual encounter with an 11-year-old Connecticut girl on MySpace, Connecticut lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require MySpace and other social-networking sites to verify the ages of members. The bill also would require parental approval for minors to have profiles.

The state's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, says the technology to verify ages and parental consent is doable and affordable. "If we can put a man on the moon, we can check ages of people on these web sites," he told the AP. He also said after a meeting with other state attorneys general, between 10 and 20 other states are considering similar legislation.

Lots of teens would not like the fact that they need parental approval to be on their favorite social-networking site and to sign on with their true ages. The lure of MySpace and other social-networking sites for teens is that they provide a corner of the world that is theirs and their friends', not their parents.' But the reality is, there are adults on the site, too, some masquerading as teens in the hopes of striking up a close relationship with an underage kid.

So, while I am not a big fan of legislating behavior, you can look at this proposal a few ways. It could drive some kids away from social-networking sites. But I am hopeful that more parents are talking to their kids about their social network pages and about how and whom they communicate with online. So I'm not sure there should be a huge issue about parents giving the go-ahead to signing up for an online social network. It would not be unexpected thing to do in our house. What about yours?

Still, passing a law to get parents to approve something they should already be talking to their kids about is a bad idea. A far better solution is for social networks to add an age-verification process to their sites. When I spoke with Catherine Cook of MyYearbook.com, she said they are working on an age-verification tool for the site. If they can do it, MySpace, and every other social network can do it, too.