They provide 14 and 15 year olds (which she is) a "private" profile, which can only be accessed when two people agree to add each other to their friends list. What else can Myspace be expected to do? Monitor each and every one of their members' actions?

Like I was getting at before, I'm sure you know more than us on the 'technical' details of law, and I'm sure people have won cases for more ridiculous shit than this in the past, but if she walks away with $30 million then we might as well not even have a court system. Whether or not she can prove the site is "responsible," anyone with half a sense of reason would agree that it's not.

I think the point is that they myspace and the girl made a legal agreement. This then is binding by law. ANd, if in this agreement myspace decided to say that they would protect children from getting run over when crossing the street and the kid got run over, then there was negligence involved and they violated their legally binding agreement.

I don't recall what sort of agreement I had to electronically sign to create a Myspace page, so I'm not real sure what in that agreement they can use as a defense, but it's pretty obvious to anyone browsing the site that a great deal of clients are not legally 18. The old joke was that they would say they were 99yrs old.
It's really up to Myspace to monitor its users more and insure that people aren't violating the terms of the agreement. While this 19yr old guy should have known better than to go after this 14yr old girl, Myspace holds some liability for "stating they will protect minors". Once you put something like that in a terms of agreement, you are liable. And if they knowingly allowed minors to stay on the site rather than delete accounts, than they are only leaving themselves open for more cases.
I agree that Parental responsibility should prevent something like this, but I also know how easy it is for kids to do this at school or at a public library. With Myspace being a major target of parental groups, they need to accept some responsibility, settle the lawsuit and make some changes.

Again referring to the law's incorporation of common sense, no, I would not hold them liable because that claim is completely unrelated to their services. But if they said "MySpace will not allow the personal information of underage members to be shared with adult members," I might hold them liable--but I would take into account whether the user did anything (e.g. violated the license agreement in a manner related to that term) to bring the harm upon themselves.

The real question is...is there really enough money made in advertising on myspace to make even the slightest law suit worth it?

What they can do is not make stupid promises in their terms of service. In reality, they haven't--I was just playing off your hypothetical. I don't think she'll win the lawsuit. But I also am not going to get my panties in a twist because she brought it. Our ability to bring lawsuits when we believe we have been harmed is part of what secures our freedom. So is a justice system that doesn't always side with a sympathetic plaintiff. I think we do ok for the most part.

MySpace is owned by Fox.

oh

well, who the hell is Tom, then? I'm suing.

who paid $580MM for Myspace if memory serves

this is the right answer.

I'm sueing over the mental anguish MySpace has caused me by giving me 24 Top Friend slots I couldn't possibly fill from my list of no actual friends.

sez him who never accepted my friend request.

That's because I never use MySpace and only signed up because Aural Fixation made me.

Long since forgotten username, password. Huzzah!

I was raped by MySpace.

He did, but i was willing.

Careful, Haq...you sound sound like an ATLA member...or at the very least a future corporate defense lawyer who is worried that tort reform will put him out of business as well.

(Says the guy who spent his friday at a Trial Lawyers seminar and his saturday at A Corporate Defense Lawyers seminar)

Naw... little chance I'll ever take on a tort case. But law school certainly tempers your perspective on these things.

That's where DAT QUICK MONEY comes from, tho

What type of law do you wanna go into?

Non-profit information/software/technology law--where the money only occasionally is.

And by occasionally, you mean never.

C'mon, Haq, get with it.

Although I guess you could do exciting things like testify before Senate sub-committees on technology

Pot, let me introduce you to my good friend Kettle

Fuck, for 40 million dollars i'd get raped by a 19 year old from MySpace.

Was it the board experience that made you willing?

Also being sued in this case are the phone company which failed to wire tap the girl's phone when she set up the meeting with the guy, and the car company which made his car and inexplicably did not include a hidden camera to record everything that happened inside.

Damn, I'm powerful! *flexing muscles*