50 Ark. Sex Offenders Using MySpace Site, State's AG Says

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel's office said Tuesday it had received a list of about 50 registered sex offenders who had been subscribers to the popular social networking site MySpace.

Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for McDaniel's office, said the Web site provided the list Monday of the sex offenders living in Arkansas who have used MySpace. He said MySpace assured state officials that it has kicked the offenders off the site. Holmstrom said he was prohibited by federal law from releasing the list to the public.

"Clearly, these individuals pose a great danger to the children of Arkansas and their ability to utilize MySpace to communicate with children enhances that danger," Holmstrom said

MySpace in May said it would begin providing data on registered sex offenders after several attorneys general demanded data on the offenders using the site. Arkansas was not one of the states that demanded the data, but McDaniel said then that the state could still benefit from the information.

MySpace, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. MySpace's attorney said in May that the Web site had already used the database to remove about 7,000 profiles out of a total of about 180 million.

"MySpace has given assurances that it has expelled from its site all registered offenders it has been able to identify and is taking diligent efforts to identify any others that may exist and expel them from the site," said Holmstrom, who added that a multistate group is working with MySpace to prevent future access by offenders.