MySpace, responding to complaints from several U.S. states, says its software has allowed it to boot 29,000 registered sex offenders.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said at least that many registered offenders were using the site. Critics say the site does not protect children from predators using aliases.

Hemanshu Nigam, the social networking site's chief security officer, responded with a statement that MySpace and Sentinel Tech, have created the software used to find and remove the offenders, Informationweek reported. Sentinel Tech LLC maintains a database of registered offenders.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said the problem with MySpace's technique is that it only works with offenders who use their real names on MySpace. He said the site encourages children to go online and share personal information, making them easy targets.

Cooper cited one mother who complained that she had unable to get MySpace to delete pages created by her daughter's friends, all of them under 14.