June 30, 2006
Big Brother Looks Into Social Networks
College administrators should already be planning to warn this fall’s freshmen about the dangers of social-networking sites, but Congress may have just given those officials an even greater incentive to do so.
At a Wednesday hearing, members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations quizzed representatives of MySpace and Facebook about their policies on keeping track of users’ online activities. The lawmakers, according to CNET News, seemed to encourage MySpace and Facebook to keep user logs indefinitely for the benefit of federal investigators and prosecutors who pursue online criminals. Leading the questioning was Diana L. DeGette, a Colorado Democrat who made headlines in April by proposing a law that would force Internet providers to retain their own activity logs.
Ms. DeGette did not indicate that she would propose a similar bill to regulate social-networking sites. But the title of Wednesday’s hearing—"Making the Internet Safe for Kids: The Role of ISP’s and Social Networking Sites"—suggests that lawmakers consider MySpace and Facebook important players in their crusade against child pornography, a campaign that is unlikely to go out of style. —Brock Read
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This is interesting – now combine that with this news tidbit from New Scientist suggesting that the NSA will be funding research on mass harvesting of sites like MySpace:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg%0A19025556.200
— Jenny Reiswig Jun 30, 03:17 PM #