Interesting story out of Texas yesterday on forbes.com. 

MySpace - the social networking site - won the first round of what could prove to be a long legal battle.  A 14 year old girl was lured on a MySpace site by a 19 year who sexually assaulted the girl after gaining her trust on the site.  The parents of the girl sued MySpace for not having appropriate age controls on their site.   The judge, in his ruling, dismissed all claims against MySpace and said they were not liable for having poor security and age verification on their site. 

But this is not the end of legal troubles for MySpace.  The lawyer who brought this suit plans to appeal and he claims that another 50 families have contacted him looking to bring suits against MySpace.

Obviously, all of this raises significant questions as to what responsibility companies like MySpace have to govern their own sites and ensure appropriate policy is in place. 

Is MySpace liable?  Do they have a responsibility to protect the users of their sites? 

In my opinion, the answers are No and Yes ... and maybe somewhere in between.  I personally don't think it is fair that MySpace be held financially responsible for the actions of those who seek to use their site for nefarious purposes.  It's like saying the road builder is responsible for what crazy and aggressive drivers do on their highways. 

But on the other hand, MySpace is responsible for putting reasonable safeguards in place to ensure their users - kids mostly - are reasonably protected.  To take the analogy a step further - it's the road-builders equivalent to installing guardrails and painted markings on the highway.  So the question is "what's reasonable protection?" 

It is absolutely fair to criticize MySpace for not having strong enough age restrictions and content restrictions, but at a practical level, these restrictions are far too easy to breach, especially on the Internet.  I can't think of a single process or technology that would be foolproof in keeping the bad guys out of a system like MySpace ... just as I think it's impossible to keep every single bad driver off the highway. 

But we can do what we can do ... we can police and patrol the Internet more aggressively - which requires a lot more resources; we can appropriately punish - and hopefully deter - those that break the rules; we can educate kids so they know the rules of the road; and, perhaps most importantly, we can make sure the parents have the right tools and knowledge in place to watch over their kids as they venture out on the highways.  An extra set of eyes watching for oncoming traffic from the passenger seat may be the best way to keep the young drivers using social networks safe. 

Forcing companies like MySpace through the courts to improve their security systems will not, in my view, lead to the sort of change in behaviour we're looking for.  A cooperative spirit - where MySpace, the police, educators, parents, and the kids themselves work together to raise awareness and create better systems is the only way to really succeed.  Only when that fails should legal remedies be sought, especially when dealing with the Internet.  Legal action that seeks to punish MySpace out of existence will simply push them - or the company that replaces it - underground and off-shore, where it will be even harder to govern. 

I look forward to a spirited on-line debate on this one ...