SoftwareMyspace to participate in Amber Alert program.
Los Angeles (CA) - Another move as it tries to brand itself as a safe site for children is that Myspace will begin showing users when Amber alert has been called in their zip code, after teaming up with the law enforcement program.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has partnered with the Amber alert program, has brought online alerts to many different sites, and they even have an openly available code for webmasters to add an applet to their site.
The Myspace integration will have proprietary coding to embed new alerts to user profiles with any open cases that exist in their zip code. The alert, which will appear in a small box at the top of the page, will also be hyperlinked and when clicked on, users can see pictures and other information about the situation.
The social networking phenomenon has been under very strict scrutiny lately after concerns of online predators began to explode when Myspace was found to be linked to several specific cases. The site has since announced it is working on new security measures in addition to the ones it already has in place, like restricting any unsolicited adults from being able to view profiles of underage users.
Children under 14 are not even allowed to create a profile, mainly because of the Children"s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, which forbids site owners from collecting any information from pre-teens.