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Last week, one of the biggest stories on the 'Net was the murder of Josie Phyllis Brown. The reason why this crime created such a buzz was that the killer, John Christopher Gaumer, met the victim on myspace.com, a site owned by News Corp (the same folks who bring you that sounding board for the right wing, Fox News). According to Gaumer's confession, after meeting Ms. Brown online, they met for a date, had an argument which turned physical, resulting in the young lady's death. There are a number of angles to view this case from, but what is particularly frightening is the lackadaisical attitude that users of sites such as myspace.com and other dating sites have concerning the protection of their private information, and personal safety.
In case you haven't noticed, many internet dating sites such as match.com and eHarmony.com have been stepping up their advertising and marketing efforts to draw more lonely hearts to their sites. For instance, match.com has entered into a cooperative marketing agreement with Dr. Phil McGraw, while eHarmony (which uses the rate of marriages per introductions to measure its success), has spawned a separate channel for married couples to strengthen their relationships. Interestingly enough, eHarmony is currently being sued by John Classen, an Oakland, CA attorney in the process of getting a divorce, because he is being denied access to the service. Since eHarmony's terms of service agreement specifically states that by using the service, you agree that you are not married, I don't understand why a judge would even hear this case. If Mr. Claasen simply lied about his marital situation, he would have no problem with eHarmony or match.com because neither site conducts any background checks on their subscribers, relying on the assumption that people signing up for a dating service would tell the truth about themselves. An assumption that would be correct if that person was not a predator. To their credit, both match.com and eHarmony screen the content posted by its members and have policies prohibiting the posting of obscene and other kinds of profane content. However, that and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks when it comes to dealing with a predator.
Worse yet, are sites like myspace.com and craigslist.org, (has anyone else noticed by the way that MySpace.com bears a striking resemblance to craigslist?) which rely on users policing themselves by flagging offensive content. In recent months, MySpace has gotten a lot of negative publicity as a hunting ground for predators, mainly due to the fact that the site is a popular destination for young (ages 14 – 25) people. In fact, because MySpace and cragislist are essentially classified ad sites, and communications between parties that are introduced on the site take place via another channel (email or IM chat), it is easier for a predator to find a victim on these sites than it would be to cruise a chat room (as in the case of former Infoseek executive Patrick Naughton, who was arrested by the FBI in a sting to catch child predators in Internet chat rooms). The latent effect of sites like myspace.com and cragslist is that they allow predators to work under the radar of law enforcement, because the communications are more difficult to monitor.
For those of us who are parents, the responsibility for protecting our children's safety ultimately resides with us. Personally, social networking sites such as myspace.com and craigslist are a poor destination for children because of the relative ease with which a predator can operate on them. As a parent, I do not believe that there are very few good reasons for children under the age of 14 to have their own email addresses. If children have to use a family mailbox, then it gives parents the opportunity to see who their children are communicating with. It also doesn't hurt to set guidelines for children to follow when they are online (even better, don't let children under 14 go online without adult supervision). One would be surprised just how far a little common sense can go when it comes to protecting children online. For those interested, there are some nice recommendations at www.wiredsafety.org/internet101/blogs.html. Remember, safe surfing is happy surfing.
Russell de Pina is a Principal with n2active, a technology consulting firm located in Houston, TX and Long Beach, CA. Russell can be reached by email at rdepina@n2active.com