• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, February 11, 2009

The Maryland General Assembly's information services chief intends to repeal his ban of Facebook, but not MySpace, Legum's New Line reports.

Last Thursday, the assembly's director of information services, Mike Gaudiello, began blocking access to social networking sites MySpace and Facebook out of fear that they might transmit viruses. The move irked state lawmakers -- especially the 45 with their own Facebook pages that they use to communicate with voters.

By today, however, Gaudiello apparently realized that he could simply install virus protection software. But, given that anti-virus software should be just as effective whether malware originates on MySpace or Facebook, the decision to continue blocking MySpace makes no sense. While Facebook might currently be more popular with state lawmakers, that type of Web popularity can shift at a moment's notice -- at least in the absence of artificial restraints.

It sounds very much like Gaudiello has decided that Facebook is simply the more worthy site -- an odd judgment for a governmental official to make. After all, tax dollars pay for those computers. It wouldn't be surprising for MySpace to argue that public officials have no business singling out the site.

Meantime, if Facebook is gaining friends in Maryland, the site (along with MySpace, YouTube and others) might be losing them in Italy. Bloomberg reports that an Italian lawmaker wants to force Internet service providers to block all social networking sites that potentially encourage crimes.