(15 January 2008 7:25 pm)

MUMBAI: The social networking site MySpace, a part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has signed an agreement with the attorneys of 49 states of the US about social networking safety.

Following a spate of online sex-related threats to young children who have MySpace profiles, MySpace has agreed to find and develop online identity authentication tools to curb sexual crime against minors. New efforts will be made to increase the safety of teens on the Internet.

Officials at MySpace stated that they would make the default profile setting for 16 and 17-year-olds on its site "private" so that people they know can only contact them. It was further decided that the minimum age to sign up for MySpace will be 14 years of age.

Under the agreement, MySpace will explore and develop age and identity verification tools for social networking web sites.

As of now, MySpace reviews the pictures and videos that users upload on to the website.

Some of the key points of the agreement are:

• Users above the age of 18 years will not be able to browse for users below 18 years.

• No user will be able to browse for users under 16 years of age.

• Users older than 18 years cannot add those under the age of 16 unless they know his/her last name or email address.