Of course, Andrew Cuomo did not put it in so many words, but his latest press release has announced that Classmates.com, as well as a host of other social networking sites, have signed up to receive Internet identifiers of registered sex offenders.
New York's e-STOP allows the internet identifiers of registered sex offenders to be released to any "authorized internet entity," defined as " any business, organization or other entity providing or offering a service over the internet which permits persons under eighteen years of age to access, meet, congregate or communicate with other users for the purpose of social networking."
The Terms of Service of Classmates.com require users to be at least 18.
I have not yet checked all of the other sites listed in the press release.
As I have written elsewhere, this is basically a placebo law. An article from CNET News contains this statement from Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for MySpace parent company News Corp: “There are still zero cases reported of any registered sex offender who was booted off MySpace being prosecuted for illegal contact occurring on MySpace.”
It is one thing for Attorney General Cuomo to advocate an unconstitutional law, but another to arrange breaking the same law. New York's Sex Offender Registration law states: " The unauthorized release of any information required by this article shall be a class B misdemeanor."
