Cyber Grooming - Are You Safe?

The internet has many benefits - social, business, banking.  The power of search engines such as Google enable rapid access to even basic information such as phone numbers and postcodes.  Smart phones provide instant access to books and music.

In Australia, Telstra has released the 4G Network.  Its wireless speed capabilities almost match cable with enormous and ever increasing download capacities.

The types of facilities that the internet provide include blogs (such as this one), Twitter, social networking sites, chat rooms, e-mail, online gaming, instant messaging, Skype and its competitors.

The Courts and the legal system are in many ways on the back foot when it comes to dealing with new developments.

Two years is a long time in technology.  However, it is often worthwhile looking back in history to learn for the future.

On of the early social networking sites known as MySpace was a direct competitor to Facebook.  In 2007, MySpace had an estimated 180 million members.  A number of Attorney Generals in the United State requested information from MySpace to provide information on how many registered sex offenders were using its site.  After some initial legal battles, MySpace removed 7,000 names of registered sex offenders from its site.  A small percentage at 0.015%.

By 2009, this figure increased to 90,000 registered sex offenders that were removed from MySpace.  MySpace was almost at its peak of membership and by 2011, membership has fallen to 60 million users.

Facebook on the other hand now has more than 800million 'active' users according to its own website.  Of those users, 50% log on every day and the average user has 130 'online' friends.

In 2009, Facebook removed about 5,500 sex offenders from its site.

In Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (26 April, 2011 revision), Part 4 deals with 'Registration and Account Security'.  It provides interesting reading.  Extracting a number of clauses:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook;

5. You will not use Facebook if you are under the age of 13;

6. You will not use Facebook if you are a convicted sex offender;

7. You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.

Facebook describes these commitments as partly for the purpose of maintaining the security of your account.

Facebook is a free service.  There is no consideration (ie money) paid to use it and therefore, one would assume that the 'Commitments' are not binding. It would seem that the only recourse that Facebook would have for a breach of one of these Commitments is to remove the user.