• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, February 15, 2007

MySpace this week scored its first major victory in a civil lawsuit, when a federal judge in Texas tossed a case brought by the family of a teen, "Julie Doe," who alleged she was sexually abused by someone she met on the site.

"If anyone had a duty to protect Julie Doe, it was her parents, not MySpace," wrote judge Sam Sparks as he dismissed the case.

Sparks found that the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 immunizes MySpace from liability based on material posted by users. He also held that Texas law doesn't oblige MySpace to protect users from crimes committed by other members.

"To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing duty, would of course stop MySpace's business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication, which Congress in its wisdom has decided to protect."

But that lawsuit is only the beginning for MySpace, which faces suits from at least five other angry families, not to mention the wrath of more than 30 state attorneys general, who are demanding the site change its policies.

Currently, MySpace won't allow users younger than 14 to create profiles, and also has restrictions for users younger than 16. The attorneys general want MySpace to ban users under 16 from the site and also implement some sort of age verification procedures -- even though, as a practical matter, it's impossible to confirm someone's age online.

Yes, if people have credit cards it might signal they're over 18 -- but it might also mean they've borrowed someone else's credit card. Besides not everyone over 18 has a credit card; and users between the ages of 16 and 18 rarely do.

Additionally, while MySpace has obvious incentives to try to cooperate with the authorities -- if nothing else, parent company News Corp. surely wants to avoid the bad publicity that would come from appearing indifferent to abuse of its members -- it's not at all clear that the attorneys general requests are constitutional. In fact, MySpace could easily argue that any proposed laws regulating the site would constitute an impermissible restriction on free speech. After all, even teens have First Amendment rights; it's certainly arguable that preventing them communicating with others online violates their rights to freedom of speech.