Under the new child protection policy, MySpace users who are 18 or older will no longer be able to request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's list unless they already know either the person’s email address or full name. As it stands, adults can request to be added to a youth's list to view their full profiles.
However, partial profiles will still be available for registered users under age 15, the company said, which reveal gender, home location and school names. Under the new policy, all users, regardless of age, also will have the option of preventing contact with people outside their age group.
MySpace also plans to enhance its ad-targeting technology so underage users are not inadvertently exposed to gambling and adult site ads.
The call for an age-restriction policy for MySpace comes on the heels of numerous complaints from parents about the safety of children on what has now become one of the most popular social networking sites on the Internet.
MySpace has said it has no way to verify if a user has properly identified themselves, spurring criticism that the new policy will do little to deter child predators from stalking underage MySpace users.
In April, MySpace announced the hiring of a former federal prosecutor and Microsoft executive to help make the networking site a safer environment for children.
MySpace is home to the profiles of many adult performers, fans and marketing and advertising executives from the adult industry and has grown steadily over the two years since its inception as a popular online spot to congregate and share information.
News Corp. purchased MySpace in August of last year as part of a $580 million deal with Los Angeles-based InterMix Media. At the time, the site claimed 22 million members, which has since spiked to an estimated 50 million registered users.