The Attorney General of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, is about to make an announcement at noon ET that he and the attorneys generals from 48 other states have negotiated a deal with Facebook to implement new safety and privacy rules, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. Facebook will be making its own announcement […]

The Attorney General of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, is about to make an announcement at noon ET that he and the attorneys generals from 48 other states have negotiated a deal with Facebook to implement new safety and privacy rules, according to sources with knowledge of the deal. Facebook will be making its own announcement later on today. This comes on the heels of a comprehensive agreement the 49 states made with MySpace last January. (The lone holdout in both cases is Texas). Blumenthal and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper co-chair the coalition that brokered the deal with MySpace. As I noted back then:

Today’s agreement between MySpace and nearly all the states attorneys general to bulk up protections against sexual predators will no doubt have spillover effects on other social networks as well. No social network can afford to look like it is lagging in this area and will do whatever it can to be at par with emerging industry norms in this area.

Now Facebook is going to announce its new Key Principles Of Social Networking Safety, which will include cooperation with law enforcement, implementing technology to protect younger users, additional safety tools for all members, and additional education and safety resources for all members. It will also join MySpace on the Internet Safety Task Force. Other areas that could see more resources thrown at them include more active reviews of images, videos, and groups, better age-limit enforcement, and linking into the sex offender database for more prompt removal of sexual predators from Facebook. With Facebook and MySpace on board, the AGs will now go after other social networks to comply with them as well.

This must have been a huge pill for Facebook to swallow. On the one hand, it cannot be seen as lagging in this area with all the real concerns about sexual predators on social networks. On the other hand, the costs of compliance will no doubt be significant.

The rules will apply not only to Facebook, but to all application developers as well. Facebook will build in more automatic warning messages when underage members are in danger of giving out personal information to an unknown adult and will restrict the ability of users to change their listed ages to under 18. Facebook has agreed to voluntarily comply with the following:

• Require companies offering services — called “widgets” or
applications — to implement and enforce Facebook’s safety and
privacy guidelines;

• Review and scrutinize requests by a user to change his or her
age. Requests to change profile ages will be logged, and
Facebook will grant only a single request to change an age above
or below 18.

• Maintain and continuously update a list of pornographic websites
and regularly sever any links to such sites;

• Increase efforts to remove groups for incest, pedophilia,
cyberbullying and other violations of the site’s terms of services
and expel from the site individual violators of those terms,

• Aggressively remove inappropriate images and content;

• More prominently display safety tips;

• Require users under 18 to affirm they have read Facebook’s
safety tips when they sign up;

• Regularly review models for abuse reporting and perform a test
using the New Jersey Attorney General’s abuse reporting icon.

• Restricting searches by over-18 users so they cannot seek under-
18 users, along with other significant limits on searches;

• Limiting certain ads for age-restricted products — such as alcohol
and tobacco — to users old enough to purchase such items;

• Identifying and removing profiles of all registered sex offenders;

• Sending automatic warning messages when a child is in danger
of providing personal information to an unknown adult;

• Providing extensive privacy controls allowing the user to block
access to their profile, restrict information available to users not
their friends and prevent another user from contacting them;

• Providing parents with tools to remove their underage child’s
profile from the site.

Full release after the break.

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Via [TechCrunch]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Company and Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.