TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Give it up already Roy

Written by

Trench Reynolds

in

Cooper still pushing for parental consent to use MySpace:

Seriously, Roy, it’s time to hang it up.

Even after being crushed in the North Carolina House Attorney General Roy Cooper is still touting his master plan for MySpace.

Attorney General Roy Cooper vowed Monday to keep pressuring lawmakers to approve legislation that will require minors to get parental permission before using MySpace.com and other social networking Web sites.

North Carolina legislators failed to pass a bill this year targeting such sites, as some House members and Internet commerce groups said a broad restriction would be unworkable and unconstitutional.

“One thing we pride ourselves in doing is being ahead of the curve with ideas,” Cooper said during a news conference. “Sometimes it just takes the slow-moving Legislature a period of time to see the light.”

Or how about a slow Attorney General who doesn’t realize the technology doesn’t exist yet?

Cooper said age verification technology is already being used on adult oriented sites that advertise tobacco and alcohol. He said social networking sites just don’t want to lose the revenue generated from advertising to young people, an accusation MySpace denies.

What? You mean that stupid drop-down menu that asks you your age? Yeah, nobody lies on that. The other form of verification is called a credit card. While a parent’s credit card may be helpful with parental consent it doesn’t prevent kids from just lifting the numbers and using it themselves. Plus it opens a whole other issue of identity theft.

And my favorite part…

Officials in two states have said MySpace recently identified more than 29,000 registered sex offenders with profiles. The company will not confirm the reports but said it is working to locate and remove profiles posted by sexual offenders.

Cooper threatened Monday to take action against MySpace if it fails to require parental consent voluntarily, but he declined to discuss specifics.

That’s Roy Cooper for you. He hasn’t been specific since he started this whole ordeal. From now on I’m going to refer to him as Mr. Vague.

Comments

5 responses to “Give it up already Roy”

  1. BW Avatar
    BW

    Not to keep going round and round with this parental responsibility thing, how is it so difficult to see what your kids are doing? They can’t even afford a computer. I find it funny that a parent buys a computer, lets the kids use it, and someone can say that a child should need to get parental permission.
    I’d like to see kids just start taking their parents’ cars whenever they feel like it. Just take the keys and drive. Apparently parents can’t stop them anyway.
    When I was younger I couldn’t make a move without my mother knowing. Go to a friend’s house? My mother better have had the parents’ names and phone number. She was better than GPS and that was before cell phones!

    Reply
  2. BelchSpeak Avatar
    BelchSpeak

    There is a newer, cooler age verification widget out there that I recently used to verify my age to view restricted content. No, its not porn!

    See the Superbad Movie trailer here: http://www.belch.com/blog/2007/07/24/superbad-mov…

    See the yellow restricted area crime tape? That is Sony picture’s age verification that works by looking up your name and matching it to your zipcode by cross referencing state drivers license databases.

    Which is fine to prove I’m over 17, but it wouldn’t work to validate age over 13, which is what MySpace users are restricted to.

    Reply
  3. Com4tably.numb Avatar
    Com4tably.numb

    Unfortunately the sony pictures age verification dosent always work. That site refuses to allow me access even though im 24. Kinda makes me a little annoyed.

    Reply
  4. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Sony age verification can’t use state driver’s license databases. That’s illegal. They’re using Aristotle Corps.’ “Integrity:Direct” software, which is (as their website claims), “Patriot Act Compliant”. Uh, yeah. Read more, here. Big brother, meet Sony. Sony, Big Brother. http://www.aristotle.com/index.php?option=com_con…

    Reply
  5. BelchSpeak Avatar
    BelchSpeak

    Okay, so Sony doesn’t access the state drivers license databases directly. They perform a yes/no check to see if the entry you put in matches a similar entry in the database.
    Pretty much the same thing.

    Reply

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