A Georgia senator worried about the safety of young teenagers who log on to Internet social networking sites such as MySpace.com and FaceBook.com has proposed a bill that would force such companies to tighten up their access to minors.

The measure would make it illegal for the owner or operator of a social networking Web site to allow minors to create or maintain a Web page without parental permission. Senate Bill 59 also would force MySpace.com and FaceBook.com to allow parents or guardians to have access to their children’s Web pages at all times.

Here we go again...

If owners or operators of a company failed to comply with the proposed law, they would be guilty of a misdemeanor on the first offense. A second offense would be a felony and could lead to imprisonment for between one and five years and a fine up to $50,000 or both.

Staton said the bill does not tell the companies exactly how to ensure that minors don’t log on without parental permission. The companies can figure that out on their own, he said.

“They can find a way to do this,” Staton said. “That’s my challenge to them.”

Ok, so let me get this straight. We would be breaking the law, until which point some method was devised to guarantee the age of our users. Currently, all we can do is ask users their age, and we do that.

This is no different from COPPA, only the age is higher, and there is no way to not wind up committing a felony.

What kind of challenge is this? Another challenge to see if we can get a badly thought out bill killed?

Senator wants restrictions on social networking sites | Capitol Updates