More Sites Stepping up to Ban Sex Offenders

by Paul Lilly

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday that 13 more social sites, including those owned by Google, Yahoo, and AOL, have all agreed to purge sex offenders from their sites. The agreement comes just a week after Cuomo announced that Facebook and MySpace had removed over 3.500 New York sex offenders.

"It is no secret that sexual predators abuse social networking websites to find and manipulate victims and to insinuate themselves into their victims' lives," said Cuomo. "e-STOP allows social networking websites to identify these sex predators and help prevent them from harming again."

Cuomo was referring to New York's Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP), of which 15 major social networking companies have now agreed to use. The law makes it mandatory for sex offenders to register their email accounts, screen names, and any other online identifiers with the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. That information is then passed along to social networking sites.