New York Attorney General issues warning to Facebook

Despite touting itself as being safer than other social networking sites, Facebook has been warned by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo that it may face a consumer fraud charge for the company’s slow response to numerous complaints by investigators, who were solicited for sex while posing as 12 to 14-year-olds on the site.

An official from Cuomo’s office urged Facebook to “Correct the language describing the site and stop marketing yourself as this pristine Web site ... parents have a misimpression. You can't mislead people." He added that Facebook’s position of being safer than most sites was accurate when the site launched more than three years ago, but due to its exponentially growing user base, the response times for complaints are not as timely as they once were. Cuomo is calling on the site to revise its claims.

Of course, Internet predators have been around a lot longer than Facebook. Back in July, MySpace identified and deleted some 29,000 registered sex offenders among its 180 million members.