For companies like MySpace.Com and other social networking sites, a case such as this can prove disastrous to its reputation. But aside from the fact that this is secondary, (the life of this poor teenager is much more important), it does bring up the issue of corporate liability and consumer safety in a rather strange and tragic way.

The case actually goes further when law enforcement officials discovered that the person that 13-year old Megan was communicating with was not the person “he” claimed to be, but actually a 49-year old woman.

The username which appeared in Megan’s computer goes by the name of Josh Evans, when in fact, the person using “his name” was actually a 49 year old woman with twisted romantic interests, to say the least.

In spite of the odd circumstances surrounding Megan’s suicide, there is still the issue of how companies like MySpace.Com or any other web business of this kind is taking measures to protect users and especially children from exposure to indecent and immoral content on the net.

The issue may have some very practical solutions that no one had ever thought of before, such as online signature identification which is a cutting-edge technology. Such identification enables the company to verify the actual identity of the person using their space or website for communication, networking or simply as a subscriber.

In this tragic case, such technology could have avoided three different cyber crimes which in my opinion took place:

Cybercrime number 1: How can a 13-year old have access to such a highly uncontrolled and unrestricted, uncensored content site like MySpace.com? Here we have a case of corporate liability enough to close MySpace.com right from the outset.

Cybercrime number 2 is what this case is now all about: Will Lori Drew be charged with impersonating a different user when she entered in “inaccurate information”, even though MySpace user agreements include a clause that agrees that they have provided “accurate and truthful” identification information?

Cybercrime number 3: Granted that 13-year olds do have access to MySpace.com, how can a woman like 49-year old Lori Drew have access to conversations with underaged teenagers or minors?

These are the real issues facing MySpace.com and users of social networking sites. Among other reasons this case has proved of interest is not only because of the tragic death of such a young girl, but also because if Lori Drew is convicted of “conspiracy to access MySpace without authorization”, she will then be open to other criminal charges involved such as wrongful death or even an accomplice to suicide of the minor for making sexual advances to a minor, or even murder itself for that matter. But legal experts argue that this sets a dangerous legal precedent: that means that if the legal authorities are looking to bring criminal charges against anyone, they can do that if they prove they have violated the terms of service of a website. What do you think of this case?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattcelia/258784813/