Every once in a while you get to see government acting like government and a business that responds to a bit of government strong-arming. That’s my take on the big news from MySpace and the Attorney General’s office regarding the recent announcement that they would work together to make the Internet a safer place for kids. The Attorneys General from 49 states (Texas did not sign) and the District of Columbia announced that they’d agreed on a set of principles for keeping kids safe. Think of it like agreeing to create a 10 commandments of good Internet practices for social networks.

The threat of regulation and prosecution can work wonders to remind businesses of the responsibility they have to their consumers. MySpace, by far the largest, and for a long time one of the loosest of the social networking sites in terms of oversight, is taking the leadership role. Not only will they be asked to implement technology to help keep kids safe, they’ll be asked to help recruit other social networks to join a task force.

In its statements, MySpace promised to do a better job of policing its community for underage profiles, adult content, and predatory behavior. But just like the real streets in our lives, you don’t clean up the bad neighborhoods overnight, and you don’t do it without tremendous resources.

MySpace has been “cleaning up” its profile sites since it created a position for a Chief Security Officer and hired the eloquent Hemanshu Nigam to spearhead the effort. One of the first things the company promised was a tool for parents to help check to see whether their children had Internet profiles posted. Announced more than a year ago, that tool has not arrived yet.

MySpace also promised to be diligent about ferreting out profiles of kids under the age of 14 (not particularly effective since kids have a strong incentive to lie). It promises to be more responsive to complaints–especially complaints about predatory behavior. It will create algorithms that could ferret out profiles that contain links to porn sites and plans to create tools that review images and video posted on profiles. One of the largest and most controversial promises is the creation of database of registered kids’ emails whose parents do not want them creating profiles on the site. The most useful step that MySpace announced is that it is reversing the notion of having to opt in to privacy protection. MySpace will turn this practice on end in teen profiles and privacy will become the default status. (Great for kids who, in their rush to get a profile up, don’t think about protecting it.)

The thorn in the side of this entire effort is the long time argument about authenticity and age verification on the Internet. Many argue that until you can absolutely verify a kid is a kid and an adult is an adult the safety conversation is rendered meaningless. Until there’s some benefit for kids to identify their correct name, age, etc. many of the safety initiatives are greatly reduced in their effectiveness.

Kudos to the Attorneys General for recognizing the need for this important first step. Kudos to MySpace for going out on a limb and risking the wrath of their youngest audience by stepping up to the plate. But until the Internet becomes a place where people tell the truth about their age, it’s going to be a tough haul.

Larry Magid and Anne Collier over at ConnectSafely.com